I 


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I  INQUIRY  ON  MliSSIONS,  I 

f  * 

*  * 

I      THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION.      |       \ 


LIBRA.RY 

'         •'  OP  THE 

T  h  ep  1  o  g  i  c  a  1    Seminary, 

J     ■    PRINCETON,    N.  J. 

Cnse,_,_ Di-v-isic 

Shelf,      '  Sectio    . 

Book, W.Q, 


\^''^. '; 


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!• 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/newmodelofchristOOtay 


NEW  MODEL 


OP 


CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS 

TO  POPISH,  MAHOMETAN, 

EXPLAINED 

IN  FOUR  LETTERS  TO  A  FRIEND, 

BY   THU    ATTHOTl    OF 

'^NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  ENTHUSIASM." 


"With  one  mind  striving  together  for  the  faith  of  the  Gospel.'* 


NEW=YORK; 


PUBIISHED  BV  J.  IBAVITT   182  EEOADWAV. 
CROCKER  &  BREW6TBE,  BOiTONj 

47  Washington  Street. 
183a. 


%  TESOLOSLGiliM, 


\; 


*'%^.^-!?: 


'T 


'^* 


OF 

CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS, 
&c.    &c. 

LETTER  1. 

"and  thbee  ase  differences  of  administrations,  but 
the  same  lord." 

My  Dear  Friend, 

We  have  happily  learned  in  modern  times 
to  draw  honey  from  the  carcass  of  the  lion. 
Bigotry  lies  slain,  and  even  a  sweetness  re- 
commends its  remains.  We  look  on  the  fan* 
side  of  schism,  or  we  have  imputed  to  it  a  fair 
side,  and  have  forgotten  its  proper  deformity. 
Few  of  us  perhaps  have  not  long  ago  ceased 
to  pray  heartily  or  hopefully  for  its  removal 
from  the  Church. 

We  are  now  looking  for  a  time  of  refresh- 
ment and  renovation.  But  we  are  aware  that 
renovation  must  bring  with  it  the  re-union  of 


4  NEW   MODEL 

all  sincere  Christians,  not  merely  in  heart, 
and  hope,  and  faith,  but  in  actual  and  visible 
fellowship  1  The  great  principles  of  such  a 
Church  union  as  must,  ere  long  take  place,  if 
a  refreshment  from  above  is  received,  it  would 
not  be  very  difficult  to  gather  from  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  nor  would  it  require  any  very  extraor- 
dinary sagacity  to  mark  out,  and  to  set  down 
in  detail  the  particular  reforms,  concessions, 
and  forbearances,  which  must  be  exacted  from 
the  several  communities  of  orthodox  Chris- 
tians in  achievhig  the  annihilation  of  sectarian 
divisions.  Men  who,  like  ourselves,  my  dear 
friend,  stand  rather  aside  from  the  centres  of 
party  feeling,  and  who,  with  a  cordial  good 
will  towards  all  who  "  love  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  sincerity,"  love  no  one  community  so 
fondly  as  to  be  blind  to  its  defects,  and  who, 
moreover,  accustom  themselves  to  contem- 
plate things  around  them,  as  if  from  the  van^ 
tage  ground  of  a  future  age,  might  easily,  if  it 
could  be  of  any  avail,  chalk  out,  in  all  its  parts, 
such  a  plan  of  a  Christian  church  as  should 
leave  not  an  inch  of  standing  room  or  shelter 
for  heresy,  discord  or  schism. 

But  this  is  not  our  business  ;  nor  is  the  day 
come  for  re-edifying  the  house  of  God.  The 
Church,  universal  at  th©  present  moment,  posr 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  5 

sesses  neither  the  power,  nor  the  wisdom,  nor 
the  grace  necessary  to  devise,  or  to  carry  for- 
wards, movements  of  so  important  a  kind. 
We  wait  the  season  of  heavenly  visitation  : — 
in  that  season  those  changes,  which  all  calm 
minds  have  long  seen  to  be  equally  indispen- 
sable and  impracticable,  shall,  as  it  were,  spon- 
taneously v/alk  forth  into  existence.  Right- 
eousness and  Peace— the  sisters  we  have 
parted,  shall  suddenly  kiss  each  other.    .       ,,. 

Meanwhile,  no  one,  if  formally  appealed  to,> 
can  consistently  call  himself  a  Christian,  and 
not  profess  to  desire  the  restoration  of  ecclesi-. 
astical  harmony.  Nor  can  any  one  make  this 
profession,  and  at  the  same  time  refuse  to  give, 
practical  proof  of  his  sincerity,  when  he  nrtigh^ 
do  so  without  hurt  to  conscience.  . , .  ^ 

If,  then,  a  fair  occasion  should  present  it^ 
self,  on  which  Christians,  of  all  denominations, 
might,  with  safety  and  facility,  and  with  im- 
mense advantage  to  the  one  great  cause; 
they  have  at  heart,  afford  an  unquestionable 
exemplification  of  their  dislike  of  religious  di- 
visions, and  of  their  readiness  to  join  hands 
with  their  brethren  whenever  it  is  ppasible  to 
do  so,  it  ought  to  be  confidently, anyticipated 


b  NEJW   MODEL 

that  an  opportunity  so  auspicious  will  not  be 
lost. 

This  pleasing-  anticipation  must  be  greatly 
strengthened  if  the  proposed  measures  of  co- 
operation are  found  to  be  recommended  by 
special  reasons  of  utility  : — if,  for  example,  it 
were  proved,  beyond  doubt,  that  our  long- 
cherished  hope  of  converting  the  world  to  the 
faith  of  Christ  is  involved  in  the  plan  of  Catho- 
lic combination ;— then,  and  in  such  a  case, 
those  must  indeed  be  strongly  fortified  within 
their  little  munitions  of  part}^  preference,  who 
should  hold  out  against  the  summons  both  of 
charity  and  reason.  An  occasion  of  this  sort, 
I  boldly  affirm  to  present  itself  now  before  the 
Christian  world.  The  gi-eat  work  of  propa- 
gating the  gospel  admits  the  co-operation  of  all 
true  Christians ;  and  not  only  admits,  but  ab- 
solutely demands  their  undivided  exertions. 

In  these  letters  I  propose,  with  as  much 
brevity  as  possible,  to  establish  and  explain  the 
dotible  proposition  here  advanced. 

Butj  first,  I  must  claim  your  attention  to  the 
very  important  distinction  between  what  may, 
for  the  moment,  be  impracticable,  and  what  is 
in  itself  chimerical : — the  latter  term  belongs 
only  to  ideas  that  have  no  affinity  with  truth 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

and  nature,  and  which  no  change  of  ch'cum- 
stances  can  recommend  to  reasonable  men ; 
but  it  may  often  happen  that  what  is  simply 
impracticable  to-day,  may  be  so  widely  at  va- 
riance with  the  existing  state  of  things,  that 
the  crowd  of  mankind  ^^ill  greet  it  with  an 
outcry  of  scorn  as  if  it  were  absurd.  In  such 
cases,  appeal  must  be  had  to  the  few  whose 
minds  are  conversant  with  great  principles ; 
but  if  enough  of  such  persons  cannot  be  found 
to  form  a  party  in  favor  of  the  new  proposition, 
then  forsooth  the  cause  must  stand  over  to  be 
adjudged  by  the  better  sense  of  a  future  age. 
I  would,  however,  refrain,  on  the  present  oc- 
casion, from  a  style  which  may  have  the  sem- 
blance of  arrogance.  The  style  of  crimination, 
I  shall  not  be  in  danger  of  falling  into  ; — for 
the  faultiness  of  our  present  system  of  Mission- 
ary exertions  has  resulted  inevitably  from  the 
previous  condition  of  the  Christian  Church ; 
and  it  implies  no  blame  on  the  part  of  indivi- 
duals ;  or  none  but  such  as  is  shared  in  minute 
fractions  by  all,  whose  misfortune  it  has  been 
to  live  in  times  of  division. 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if,  in  the  com- 
plicated machinery  of  our  Missionary  Socie- 
ties, there  were  no  errors  of  management; 


■iiiW' 


8  NEW   MODEL 

but  though  these  were  much  greater  than 
probably  they  are,  it  wouki  be  a  work  of  very 
questionable  utility  to  spread  them  open  to  the 
gaze  of  malignity  and  irreligion.  At  least  it 
may  be  said  that  the  man  who  should  freely 
assume  the  office  of  censor  in  this  case  would 
be  liable  to  a  just  suspicion  of  secret  disaffec- 
tion to  the  great  cause  of  evangelization. 
Surely  he  must  possess  a  super-human  mag- 
nanimity who,  while  sensitive  to  the  credit  of 
religion,  and  glowing  with  zeal  for  its  diffu- 
sion abroad,  should  take  up  his  post  on  the 
side  of  opposition,  and  adopt  a  style  of  ani- 
madversion which  might  render  him  liable 
even  to  an  unfounded  accusation  of  hostile 
feeling  towards  the  noblest  enterprize  that  the 
world  has  ever  witnessed ! 

Happily,  in  the  present  instance,  I  have 
no  such  painful  duty  to  discharge  ; — and  on 
the  contrary  can  avow  a  firm  persuasion,  that 
there  exists  among  the  officers  and  directors 
of  our  several  Missionary  Societies  as  large  a 
measure  of  wisdom,  of  disinterested  zeal,  and 
of  primitive  simplicity,  as  could  have  been- 
brought  into  the  service  of  Christianity  In  any 
age  ;  and  I  believe  that  these  excellent  quali- 
ties are  as  little  alloyed  by  indiscreti<3ii,  or  by 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  9 

sinister  motives,  as  is  at  all  compatible  witti 
the  infirmity  of  human  natm^e. 

Nevertheless  it  may  still  be  true  that  the 
modern  system  of  missionary  exertion,  taken 
as  a  whole,  is  fundamentally  defective,  and 
such  as  can  never,  unless  miracle  comes  to 
its  aid,  achieve  an  extensive  conquest  for 
Christianity.  Nothing  less  than  the  exalted 
virtues  and  admirable  temper  of  the  founders 
and  principal  supporters  of  the  modern  Mis- 
sionary Societies  could  have  hidden  so  long 
from  our  eyes  the  capital  error  on  which  we 
have  been  acting.  We  have  been  putting 
contempt,  not  only  upon  the  requirements  of 
Christianity,  but  upon  those  universal  maxims 
which  the  experience  of  mankind  has  proved 
to  be  indispensable  to  success  wherever  hu- 
man agency  is  concerned.  Our  error  is  so 
great,  and  the  good  sense  of  the  age  so  effica- 
cious,— -when  once  set  in  movement,  that  re- 
form cannot  be  distant. — The  elements  of 
Christain  zeal  must  presently  be  dissolved,  and 
recomposed  upon  a  new  model. 

As  a  preliminary  to  the  ensuing  argument, 
it  is  necessary  to  lay  down  the  principles  that 
must  prompt  and  guide  every  reasonable  at- 
tempt to  propagate  the  Gospel. 


10  NEW    MODEL 

We  are  all  agreed  in  the  belief  that  our  re- 
ligion is  destined  to  pervade  the  earth,  and 
that  the  time  shall  come  when  every  tribe  of 
the  human  family  shall  bow  at  the  sacred  name 
of  Him  whom  we  worship  as  Lord  and  Sa- 
viour. To  believe  less  than  this  seems  scarce- 
ly compatible  with  a  profession  of  faith  in  the 
truth  of  the  Scriptures ;  for,  how  dark  soever 
may  be  the  language  of  prophecy  in  relation 
to  the  times  and  the  causes  of  the  event,  the 
ultimate  fact  is  declared  in  terms  too  absolute 
to  admit  of  any  other  interpretation  than 
one. 

But  uniformity  of  opinion  ends  with  the  be- 
lief of  this  glorious  fact ;  for  as  there  is  roonn 
for  many  suppositions  in  regard  to  the  manner 
in  which  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  world 
shall  be  effected,  so,  theories  of  all  kinds  have 
actually  been  espoused.  They  may,  howev- 
er, all  be  classed  under  two  general  heads : 
on  the  one  side  it  is  supposed,  and  certainly 
sober  reason  approves  the  supposition,  that  a 
gradual  extension  of  the  existing  means  of 
evangelization,  more  and  more  copiously  bles- 
sed from  above,  will  at  length,  according  to 
what  may  be  termed  a  natural  process,  cause 
the  Gospel  to  triumph  universally.     On  this 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  11 

theory  it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  whe  n 
once  a  certain  point  of  success  has  been  attain- 
ed, the  mere  accumulation  of  power  and  in- 
fluence on  the  side  of  truth,  will  impart  an  ir- 
resistible momentum  and  a  greatly  accelerated 
velocity  to  religious  principles,  so  that  the  last 
conquest  of  Christianity  shall  be  accomplish- 
ed in  an  incomparably  shorter  period  than  has 
been  occupied  in  achieving  its  first  successes. 

On  the  other  hand,  reasons  of  considerable 
force  may  be  urged  in  favour  of  the  opinion 
that  although  the  common  means  of  religious 
instruction  may  have  a  subordinate  part  as- 
signed to  them  in  the  great  movements  that 
are  to  change  the  moral  aspect  of  the  world, 
yet,  that  the  glorious  revolution  shall  be  effect- 
ed chiefly  by  the  operation  of  new  and  extra- 
ordinary means,  suddenly  coming  into  play, 
and  perhaps  of  a  supernatural  kind.  If  we 
entertain  this  idea,  we  must  suppose,  that  the 
part  left  to  the  Church  will  be  little  more  than 
that  of  joyous  praise  and  admiration,  while  it 
exclaims—"  This  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it 
is  marvellous  in  our  eyes." 

The  one  of  these  suppositions,  or  the  other, 
may  be  entertained  with  perfect  safety,  by 
those  who  are  alive  to  their  duty  as  Christians, 


12  NEW    MODEL 

and  whose  mode  of  thinking  is  free  from  con- 
fusion. The  first  supposition,  though  it  may 
cheer  the  path  of  labour,  cannot  materially 
enhance  the  obligation  of  sending  the  Gospel 
abroad;  nor  can  the  second  have  any  influ- 
ence whatever,  in  a  sound  mind,  to  relax  the 
energy  of  Christian  zeal.  So  long  as  the  es- 
tablished economy  of  the  moral  world  contin- 
ues what  it  is,  the  holder  of  the  one  opinion 
and  the  holder  of  the  other,  must  pursue  pre^ 
cisely  the  same  course  ; — they  must  put  their 
hands  precisely  to  the  same  instruments;  look 
for  their  warrant  to  the  same  sanctions  ;  de- 
pend upon  the  same  aid ;  and  calculate  the 
issue  on  the  very  same  principles  of  common 
sense  and  scriptural  injunction. 

This  sameness  of  conduct  incumbent  upon 
all  Christians,  irrespectively  of  the  interpreta- 
tions they  may  give  to  the  language  of  prophe- 
cy, results  from  the  breadth  and  the  simplici- 
ty of  the  principle  which  makes  it  our  duty  to 
diffuse  our  religion.  The  most  common  style 
of  natural  benevolence,  the  most  secular  sort 
of  philanthropy,  the  lowest  notion  of  Christian 
morality,  not  less  than  the  most  pure  and  ele- 
vated impulses"  of  genuine  faith  and  love,  all 
concur  in  demanding  from  us  the  same  ardu- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS  13 

ous  course.  Mere  remoteness  of  place,  or  cir- 
cumstances of  hazard  and  difficulty,  cannot 
be  held  essentially  to  distinguish  the  duty  of  a 
parent  or  master  to  instruct  his  children  and 
serv^ants,  from  that  which  binds  us  to  impart 
Christianity  to  the  islanders  of  the  Southern 
Pacific,  or  to  the  Nomadic  tribes  of  central 
Asia.  Or  at  most  the  difficulty  of  the  attempt 
in  the  latter  case,  is  only  to  be  heard  in  ex- 
cuse of  inaction  after  a  fair  experiment  has 
proved  it  to  be  insurmountable. 

The  first  law  of  Christian  morality — to  love 
our  neighbour  as  ourselves — to  do  unto  others 
as  we  would  they  should  do  unto  us — to  do 
good  unto  all  men  as  we  have  opportunity, 
furnishes  an  incontrovertible  warrant  for  the 
Missionary  enterprise,  even  apart  from  the 
injunction  left  by  our  Lord  with  his  disciples, 
to  "go  and  teach  all  nations." 

These  intelligible  principles  ask  for  no  ex- 
position ;  they  admit  of  no  eloquence  of  en- 
forcement. Whoever  does  not  perceive  and 
feel  the  practical  inference  involved  in  them, 
must  be  deemed  to  stand  beyond  the  range  of 
persuasion — he  lives  to  himself — he  is  cut  off 
from  the  family  of  man ;  and  whoever,  on  the 
plea  of  hypothetical  anticipations,  sneaks  away 
2 


14  NEW    MODEL 

from  the  post  of  Christian  duty,  must  be  re- 
garded as  possessed  of  no  common  sense,  or 
no  human  sympathies.  Even  if  it  could  be 
shown  on  the  strongest  grounds  of  probability 
that  we  may  expect  a  divine  interposition  to- 
morrow, such  as  should  supersede  our  labours ; 
still  it  remains  certain,  that  to-day  the  work 
of  preaching  the  Gospel  is  the  duty  of  all 
who  call  themselves  the  disciples  of  Christ. 

This  duty  is  of  so  very  clear  and  absolute  a 
kind,  and  it  rests  on  so  broad  and  firm  a  ba- 
sis, that  if  the  Missionary  enterprise  were  once 
fairly  brought  out  from  among  the  narrows 
of  sectarianism,  it  might  be  expected  to  inter- 
est the  feelings,  and  to  command  the  support 
of  a  large  class  of  persons,  who,  though  not 
alive  to  the  highest  motives,  are  found  to  be 
not  slow  in  obeying  the  calls  of  common  hu- 
manity, and  who,  if  certain  facts  were  dis- 
tinctly placed  before  them,  would  probably 
rejoice  to  aid  in  dispelling  the  cruelties  and 
impurities  of  idolatrous  worship. 

But  the  obligation  we  are  under,  of  attempt- 
ing to  convert  our  erring  brethren  to  the  faith 
of  Christ,  is  not  more  clear  than  is  the  princi- 
ple under  the  guidance  of  which  we  are  to 
proceed  in  discharging  the  part  assigned  to  us 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  15 

Christian  teachers  wield  no  supernatural  arms ; 
they  are  simply — teachers :  the  utmost  they 
can  do  is  to  instruct  and  to  persuade  ;  and  in 
the  accomplishment  of  their  task,  they  are 
bound  to  avail  themselves  of  all  those  methods 
of  influence  which  experience  authenticates, 
and  which  Christianity  does  not  condemn. 
It  is  true  that  the  conversion  of  men  is  a  di- 
vine work  ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  the  work  of 
human  zeal,  industry,  and  discretion ;  and 
we  are  just  as  fully  bound  to  use  our  utmost 
sagacity  in  the  discharge  of  our  part,  as  to 
discharge  it  at  all. 

It  is  certainly  very  proper  to  keep  in  view 
the  abstract  idea  of  preaching  the  Gospel,  and 
to  think  of  it  simply  as  an  announcement  of 
pardon  to  those  who,  like  ourselves,  are  guilty 
and  condemned,  and  yet  are  heirs  of  immor- 
tality. In  this  general  view  the  sons  of  Adam, 
of  every  tribe,  stand,  without  distinction,  on 
the  same  ground ;  and  in  this  view  nothing 
more  seems  to  be  included  in  the  idea  of  a 
Mis&ion  to  the  heathen,  than  the  sending  forth 
of  men  who,  having  themselves  become  parta- 
kers of  the  grace  of  God,  glow  with  holy  zeal 
and  love  towards  their  brethren,  and  are  will- 
ing to  make  the  last  sacrifice  in  attempting  to 


16  NEW    MODEL 

win  them  to  the  hope  of  immortality.  Doubt- 
less the  whole  essence  of  Missionary  labour  is 
comprised  in  this  abstract^  idea ;  nor  can  it 
be  imagined  that  any  who  go  forth  in  this 
spirit  shall  be  suftered  to  spend  their  strength 
altogether  for  nought,  even  though  the  mea- 
sures they  pursue  are  so  little  adapted  to  the 
specific  character  of  the  work  before  them, 
that  miracle  only  could  give  them  extensive 
success. 

But  this  elementary  notion  of  evangelical 
labour  assuredly  does  not  include  all  that  ought 
to  occupy  the  attention  of  those  who  engage 
in  the  work  of  propagating  Christianity  among 
the  heathen.  If  there  are  any  who,  from  a 
jealous  fear  of  the  introduction  of  a  secular 
spirit,  would  affirm  that  nothing  ought  to  be- 
long to  a  Christian  Mission  but  the  bare  an- 
nouncement of  salvation,  such  persons  might 
instantly  be  convicted  of  a  practical  inconsis- 
tency ;  for  which  of  them  is  there  that  would 
not  strive,  in  conveying  religious  instruction,  to 
adapt  both  his  language  and  his  argument  to 
the  capacity  and  disposition  of  those  to  whom 
he  speaks '?  Wh  o  would  be  so  absurd  as  to 
exhort  a  child  and  an  adult,  a  peasant  and  a 
scholar,  to  repentance  and  faith,  precisely  in 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  17 

the  same  terms  1  None,  in  fact,  would  cany 
their  theoretical  contempt  of  human  wisdom 
to  this  point  of  extravagance.  Common  sense 
— not  soon  put  quite  to  silence,  leads  even  the 
most  determined  dogmatists  to  conform  them- 
selves, as  nearly  as  they  can,  to  the  intellect- 
ual condition— to  the  ignorance,  or  to  the 
known  prejudices  of  those  to  whom  they  an- 
nounce the  Gospel, 

But  tliis  adaptation  of  the  style  to  the  hear- 
er contains,  by  implication,  an  apology  for  the 
use  of  all  those  subsidiary  means  which  I  have 
to  plead  for  as  essential  to  the  completeness 
of  a  Christian  Mission  to  the  heathen.  If  the 
actual  condition  of  the  people  we  are  attempt- 
ing to  convert  is  known — and  it  ought  always 
to  be  known — before  we  make  the  attempt, 
then  a  Mission  to  that  people  must  include  a 
peculiarity  of  means,  that  must  make  the  out- 
fit utterly  inappropriate  to  any  other  destina- 
tion. 

Can  any  one  blame  this  adaptation  of 
means  to  special  ends,  who  himself  uses  per- 
suasion at  all  ?  for  in  doing  so  he  plainly  re- 
cognizes the  principle,  that  a  part  is  assigned 
to  the  skill  and  intelligence  of  the  agent  in  the 
divine  economy  of  salvation.  Having  gone 
3* 


18  NEW    MODEL 

SO  far,  he  can  with  no  reason  stop  shor  t  in  half 
measures,  or  after  himself  using  discretion  and 
skill  in  the  business  of  Christian  instruction, 
find  fault  with  those  who  employ  any  means, 
how  elaborate  or  circuitous  soever  they  may 
seem,  which  appear  to  have  a  tendency  to 
facilitate  the  entrance  or  progress  of  religion. 
In  a  word,  if  Christians  feel  themselves  bound, 
-by  the  most  solemn  obligation,  to  preach  the 
Gospel  wherever  they  can  gain  a  hearing, 
they  are  also  bound,  by  the  very  same  respon- 
sibility, to  bring  into  the  service,  not  only  their 
zeal  and  piety,  but  all  the  sagacity,  and  skill, 
and  knowledge  they  possess,  or  may  acquire. 
To  contemn  any  probable  means  of  accom- 
plishing their  great  object,  is  in  fact  to  spurn 
the  sanctions*  under  which  they  act.  If,  for 
example,  a  plan  were  proposed,  which  should 
recommend  itself  by  its  obvious  reasonable- 
ness,  Christians  would  have  no  more  liberty 
to  reject  it,  than  they  have  to  withdraw  alto- 
gether from  the  Missionary  enterprise.  The 
duty  of  preaching  the  Gospel  contains  the 
duty  of  domg  so  in  the  best  manner  we  are 
able. 

If  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  nations  were 
held  to  consist  simply  in  finding  men  of  devo- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.'  19 

ted  piety,  in  fitting  them  out,  and  shipping 
them  away  to  distant  shores,  as  the  winds  of 
heaven  may  determine  ; — if  the  Missionary 
work  be  nothing  more  than  the  casting  the 
good  seed  at  random  over  the  earth,  then  in- 
deed we  must  grant  that  counsel,  and  concert, 
and  knowledge,  and  special  qualification,  can 
add  little  or  nothing  to  the  hope  of  success  ; 
and  then,  those  who  are  the  least  esteemed  in 
the  church  for  wisdom,  or  at  least  distinguish- 
ed by  acquirements,  may,  as  well  as  the  most 
accomplished,  assume  the  reins  of  manage- 
ment. 

A  few  years  ago,  this  inartificial  notion  of 
Missions  might  perhaps  have  found  a  multi- 
tude of  advocates  among  the  pious.  But  the 
rebukes  of  experience  have  now  rendered  it 
almost  obsolete.  All  intelligent  and  well-in- 
formed persons  have  become  thoroughly  con- 
vinced that,  so  long  as  our  Missionaries  go  ■ 
not  forth  armed  with  miraculous  powers,  they 
must  encounter  difficulties  which  can  be  sur- 
mounted only  by  special  qualities  of  mind,  in 
addition  to  piety,  courage,  and  devotedness. 
It  is  ascertained,  also,  that  the  necessary  quali- 
fications of  a  Missionary  are,  in  part,  the  gifts 
of  nature  to  here  and  there  an  individual,  and 


20  NEW    MODEL 

in  part  must  be  the  result  of  a  long  and  labo- 
rious training. 

Then,  as  to  the  business  of  direction  at 
home,  if  it  requires  in  those  who  undertake  it 
less  of  personal  courage  and  self-denial,  it 
asks  for  more  of  those  high  qualities  of  the 
mind,  which  tit  men  for  counsel  and  govern- 
ment. I  know  well  there  is  a  tendency  in 
religionists,  when  speaking  on  subjects  of  this 
sort,  to  give  way  to  preposterous  exaggera- 
tions, and  to  make  things  that  are  truly  im- 
portant appear  ridiculous  by  the  comparisons 
they  use.  I  would  carefully  avoid  this  fault, 
and  yet  am  ready  to  hazard  the  assertion,  that 
the  management  of  a  universal  Missionary 
Society,  conducted  on  large  and  rational  prin- 
ciples, would  tax  the  faculties  of  the  human 
mind  to  the  full  as  heavily  as  do  the  affairs  of 
an  empire.  Or  if  you  demur  at  such  an  as- 
sertion, you  certainly  will  not  deny  that  the 
home  management  of  our  warfare  against 
idolatry  and  Mahometanism  may  well  occupy 
all  the  talents  that  the  religious  •  world  has  at 
its  command  ; — that  the  whole  of  its  resour- 
ces of  wisdom,  learning,  and  practical  ability, 
will  always  be  inadequate  to  the  work  to  be 
performed  ;  and,  in   a  word,  that  we  are  fur 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  21 

from  being  in  condition  to  dispense  with  the 
most  exact  economy  in  the  use  of  these  re- 
sources. If  loss  and  waste  of  labour  takes 
place  at  the  centime  of  movement,  by  the  fault 
of  an  ill-contrived  machinery,  oiu*  apparatus 
ought  instantly  to  be  taken  to  pieces,  and  re- 
constructed on  a  better  model. 

Silver  and  gold,  scarce  as  they  may  be  in 
the  chests  of  charity,  abound  more  than  those 
mental  and  moral  qualities  which  the  Mission- 
ary work  stands  in  need  of;  and  if  frugality 
extends  no  further  than  to  the  husbanding  of 
finances,  it  forgets  its  chief  duty.  There  is 
incomparably  more  need  of  rational  parsimo-^ 
ny  in  the  expenditure  of  the  time  and  talents 
available  to  the  pm^poses  of  the  great  cause, 
than  of  a  mere  sparing  of  the  funds  of  our  so- 
cieties, though  these  indeed  admit  of  no  prod- 
igality. 

But  how  should  there  not  take  place  an  im- 
mense waste  of  the  most  precious  of  our  re- 
sources, as  well  as  of  the  most  common,  if, 
in  conducting  an  enterprise  so  various,  so  com- 
plicated, and  so  difficult,  there  is  neither  unity 
of  counsels,  nor  a  partition  of  tasks — if  all  are 
attempting  something  in  all  Idnds — if,  on  some 
points  there  is  a  lavishing  of  efforts,  on  some 


22  NEW    MODEL 

a  collision,  and  on  many  a  lack  of  service? 
The  aid  of  miracle  must  certainly  be  reckon- 
ed upon  by  those  who  imagine  that  the  work 
of  propagating  Christianity  abroad  may  pro- 
ceed auspiciously  while  prosecuted  on  a  sys- 
tem directly  opposed  to  those  universal  laws 
which  are  found  to  be  indispensable  to  the 
success  of  all  human  undertakings. 

It  is  now  perfectly  well  understood  that 
unity  of  plan,  and  division  of  labor,  are  the 
two  great  secrets  of  prosperity.  From  the 
affairs  of  a  counting-house  to  those  of  a  king* 
dom,  and  in  mechanical  processes  of  all  kinds, 
if  the  whole  mass  of  labour  be  not  subjected  to 
the  same  counsels,  or  if  it  be  not  distiibuted 
among  the  several  co-operators  on  the  princi- 
ple of  giving  to  each  the  particular  task 
which  by  natural  ability  or  acquired  habit 
he  is  qualified  to  perform,  nothing  is  to  be 
expected  but  confusion,  defeat,  and  waste  of 
means.  It  is  the  perfection  with  which,  in 
modern  times,  the  principle  of  the  division  of 
labour  has  been  carried  into  elfect,  that  has 
set  the  European  nations  generally,  and  the 
English  in  particular,  so  immensely  in  advance 
of  the  most  polished  people  of  antiquity,  in  all 
the  useful  arts,  and  in  the  executive  processes 
of  government.     Division  of  Labour  has 


NEW    MODEL  23 

seemed  to  vanquish  impossibilities,  and  to  im- 
part a  sort  of  omnipotence  to  human  industry. 

Walk  round  the  circle  of  mechanic  arts  as 
they  are  carried  on  in  England  at  the  present 
moment  ;  visit  manufactories,  warehouses, 
trading  establishments,  or  public  offices,  and 
you  will  see  on  every  side,  and  under  a  thou- 
sand forms,  the  same  law  working  its  way 
through  difficulty  and  perplexity,  with  the 
ease  of  unconscious  power,  or  with  the  celeri- 
ty of  enchantment.  In  the  management  of 
the  revenues  of  state,  or  in  the  making  of  a 
pin,  the  very  same  engine, — the  division  of 
Labour,  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  process. 
Or  if  here  and  there,  from  the  stubbornness 
of  inveterate  custom,  or  the  want  of  intelli- 
gence, or  the  impliability  of  subalterns,  the 
obsolete  and  clumsy  modes  of  labour  are  per- 
sisted in,  there  you  will  also  see  Ruin  resting 
her  heavy  hand  upon  the  work;  or,  at  the 
best,  such  small  successes  as  may  be  obtain- 
ed, are  purchased  at  a  cost  of  exertion  which 
if  better  applied,  would  have  secured  ten 
times  the  product. 

And  now  tell  me,  my  dear  friend,  on  what 
plea  it  is,  that  you  would  exclude  from  the 
management  of  Christian  Missions,  the  unal- 


24  OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

terable  law  of  successful  achievement!?  Will 
you  say  that  this  great  work  is  to  form  an 
exception  because  it  belongs  only  in  part  to 
human  agency  ? — In  behalf  of  that  part,  I 
demand  free  entrance  for  the  principle  of 
division  of  labour.  Human  agency,  be  its 
range  more  or  less  limited,  must  submit  itself 
to  its  proper  conditions,  and  can  never,  with- 
out impious  presumption,  aspire  to  a  confor- 
mity with  the  methods  of  divine  proceeding. 
On  the  present  occasion  we  are  not  talking 
of  miracles,  or  of  wonders;  but  of  things 
that  come  under  the  hand  of  man — of  things 
which  his  skill  may  further,  or  his  folly  spoil. 
And  we  are  not  only  speaking  of  a  work  that 
belongs  to  the  sphere  of  human  agency ;  but 
of  one  that  is  eminently  difficult,  operose, 
various  in  its  circumstances;  a  work  which 
peculiarly  demands  the  application  of  specific 
qualifications  to  specific  objects.  No  enter- 
prise of  commerce  or  of  politics,  nearly  so 
much  as  the  management  of  a  Christian  Mis- 
sion to  the  unchristian'  world,  demands  that 
such  and  such  individuals — rarely  furnished 
by  natural  ability  and  laborious  acquirements, 
should  devote  their  undiverted  attention, 
through   life,   to   the  same  spheres  of  action. 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  25 

With  how  perilous  a  presumption  are  we  then 
chiirgeoble,  if,  in  contempt  of  the  well-known 
principles  of  labour,  we  cast  this  mighty  en- 
terprise upon  the  billows  of  confusion,  and 
leave  it  to  the  winds  and  waves  of  accident, 
to  supply  the  place  of  the  wisdom  we  will  not 
exercise. 

But  I  ought  not,  my  dear  friend,  to  do  you 
the  injustice  of  supposing  that  you  will 
undertake  to  defend  the  grand  fault  of  the 
existing  sj^stem,  or  that  you  would  oppose 
yourself  to  reform  on  any  other  ground  than 
that  of  the  impossibility  of  realizing  a  better 
model.  Assuming  then  that  your  assent  is  so 
far  gamed,  there  are  two  questions  to  be  de- 
termined ; — first,  in  what  manner  the  common 
laws  of  labour  might  be  applied  to  the  work 
of  propagating  Christianity;  and  secondly, 
how  those  obstacles  are  to  be  surmounted 
which  seem  to  render  the  proposed 'reform 
impracticable. 

For  the  first  question  then. — In  the  man- 
agement of  complicated  affairs,  unity  of  coun- 
sels is  necessar}^  chiefly  because,  without  it, 
full  advantage  cannot  be  taken  of  the  method 
of  the  division  of  labour;  for  this  method 
requires,  that  the  whole  work  should  be  ana- 


26  NEW    MODEL 

lyzed  with  philosophical  precision,  and  that,  in 
the  actual  apportionment  of  tasks,  no  motives 
whatever  should  be  listened  to,  but  such  as 
are  warranted  by  the  severest  reason.  But 
of  course  nothing  like  this  can  take  place,  if 
the  opinions  and  caprices  of  unconnected  in- 
dividuals rule  the  conduct  of  affairs.  It  is 
true,  that,  in  the  execution  of  extensive  mer- 
cantile enterprises,  a  greater  advantage  may 
arise  to  the  public  from  leaving  the  eagerness 
of  individuals  to  discover,  as  it  wer^  by  instinct 
the  channels  of  prosperous  adventure,  than 
can  be  secured  by  the  ponderous  and  power- 
ful macliinery  of  great  chartered  companies. 
But  in  matters  of  gain  the  motives  of  exertion 
have  a  vigour,  a  versatility,  and  a  certainty, 
which  almost  supersede  the  necessity  of  com- 
bined counsels ;  or  even  if  partial  errors  arise, 
they  bring  with  them  a  quick  chastisement, 
which  presently  amends  the  fault.  Besides, 
the  advantages  belonging  to  a  large  trading 
company,  are  counter-balanced  by  the  op- 
pressions that  belong  to  monopoly. 

An  illustration  more  nearly  allied  to  the 
subject  before  us  may  be  taken  from  the 
affairs  of  government.  The  Christian  com- 
munity,  meditating  the  subjugation  of  the 


OF    CHTISTIAN    MISSIONS.  27 

nations  to  its  own  faith,  may  be  compared  to 
a  kingdom  engaging  in  a  war  of  universal 
conquest,  but  having  at  its  command  very- 
limited  resources.  In  such  a  case  success 
must  depend,  not  merely  on  the  courage  and 
spirit  of  the  people,  and  on  the  military  talent 
of  commanders ;  but  quite  as  much  on  a 
perfect  system  of  management  at  the  centre 
of  movement.  Neither  life  or  treasure  must 
be  wasted  upon  ill-concerted  attempts :  there 
must  be  no  excess  of  force  applied  to  particu- 
lar points ;  and  especially  the  whole  strength 
of  the  state  must  always  be  held  in  readiness 
to  move  towards  any  point  where  either  ex- 
traordinary danger,  or  hope,  may  present 
itself.  If,  instead  of  such  a  perfect  husban- 
ding of  means,  the  war  of  universal  conquest 
were  left  to  the  skill  and  courage  of  a  dozen 
independent  chiefs,  who,  if  not  hostile  to  each 
other,  acknowledge  no  subordination; — if 
each  selects  for  himself  his  field  of  enterprise, 
and  devises  for  himself  Lis  mode  of  attack,  it 
is  absolutely  certain  that,  in  such  a  case,  nei- 
ther the  valour  of  the  people,  nor  the  talent  of 
their  leaders,  could  avail  to  achieve  any  exten- 
sive or  permanent  success.  Splendid  triumphs 
might  here  and  there  be  won,  and  unfading 


28  NEW   MODEL 

laurels  acquired  ;  but  the  world  would  not  be 
vanquished. 

The  analogy  is  close  enough  to  justify  the 
inference  I  would  derive  from  it. — The  holy 
war  of  extermination  v/hich  Christians  are 
carrying  on  against  the  idols  of  the  nations,  is 
one  of  too  great  extent  and  difficulty  not 
absolutely  to  demand  a  perfect  combination 
of  efforts.  This  combination  is  asked  for,  as 
we  shall  presently  see,  by  powerful  motives  of 
a  moral  and  religious  kind ;  but  it  is  chiefly 
necessary  for  the  purpose  of  giving  effect  to 
the  principle  of  Division  of  Labo.ur.  This 
desirable  object  might  be  fully  attained,  as  I 
shall  show,  !)y  the  simplest  plan  of  concur- 
rence, and  without  having  recourse  to  any  of" 
that  ponderous  machinery,  or  pomp,  and 
state,  and  magnitude  of  movement,  which 
might  offer  temptation  to  ambitious  minds,  or 
seem  incompatible  with  the  simplicity  and  hu- 
mility of  the  Christian  temper. 

I  assume  then  the  supposition  that,  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  fully  to  bear  upon  the 
Missionary  cause,  the  great  principle  of  a  per-, 
feet  division  of  labour,  the  entire  body  of 
evangelical  Christians  in  the  British  islands — 
not  denying   that   the  plan  of  co-o])eration 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  29 

might  embrace  the  foreign  piotestant  C hurdl- 
es— are  not  merely  all  animated  by  a  zeal  of 
the  same  quality,  but  actually  willing  to  throw 
together  their  resources — moral,  mental,  and 
financial,  into  one  and  the  same  coffer  ; —  a 
supposition  manifestly  accordant  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Gospel,  as  well  as  with  the  dic- 
tates of  common  sense.    . 

We  imagine  then  a  universal,  or  rather  a 
harmonious  association  to  be  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  propagating  Christianity  abroad. 
It  is  then  to  be  inquired  in  what  manner  it 
shall  distribute  among  its  members  and  agents 
the  multifarious  labours  which  lie  before  it. 

Wherever  division  and  sub-division  is  to 
take  place,  very  much  depends  upon  choosing 
aright  the  major  and  the  7ninor  in  our  classifi- 
cation. Thus,  for  example,  it  might  seem  a 
simple  and  obvious  mode  of  apportioning  the 
toils  of  a  great  Missionary  Society,  to  assign 
to  separate  committees  the  several  depart- 
ments of— financial  management — the  edu- 
cation of  Missionaries — the  government  of 
the  foreign  stations — negotiation  with  our  own 
or  foreign  governments,  &c.  But  advanta- 
ges of  a  higher  kind  seem  to  recommend  the 
plan  of  making  these  different  branches  of 
3* 


30  NEW    MODEL 

management  the  subject  of  a  sub-division; 
while  the  dissimilarity  of  the  several  spheres 
of  Missionary  labour  is  taken  as  the  basis  of 
the  primary  partition.  On  this  principle 
there  would  be  formed  a  number  of  societies 
separate  and  distinct,  yet  always  in  corres- 
pondence with  each  other,  and  actually  con- 
nected by  their  relationship  to  a  common 
centre  of  counsel.  Each  would  occupy  its 
peculiar  field,  and  each  distribute  within  itself 
the  different  functions  of  finance — theological 
superintendence — foreign  management,  &c. 
The  obvious  fact  that  the  condition  of  Pa- 
gan, Mahometan,  and  professedly  Christian 
nations,  is  so  various  as  to  demand  a  specific 
order  of  means  in  each  instance,  affords 
ground  enough  for  adopting  such  an  arrange- 
ment as  the  one  above-mentioned.  It  is  also 
an  obvious  fact  that  there  are  to  be  found  at 
the  semce  of  the  Church,  specific  qualifica- 
Hons,  natural  and  acquired,  fitting  certain 
individuals  for  moving  with  advantage  in  par- 
ticular spheres  of  labour,  rather  than  in  others. 
There  are,  for  example,  to  be  found  actually 
in  the  service  of  the  Missionary  cause  men 
who,  from  the  opportunity  they  have  had  of 
acquiring  local  knowledge,  or  from  lltc  nature 


OP    CHRISTUN    MISSIONS.  3l 

of  their  studies,  or  from  the  peculiarity  of 
their  tastes,  are  sure  to  be  consulted  or  em- 
ployed when  particular  measures  are  in  agita* 
tion.  And  if  the  principle  of  adapting  our 
evangelical  enterprises  with  precision  to  the 
condition  of  the  people  w^e  aim  to  convert, 
were  more  fully  acted  upon  than  it  is,  such 
quaJifie'd  individuals  would  be  called  upon  to 
act  the  prominent  part  which  belongs  to  them 
in  the  management  of  our  Missions ;  and  yet 
they  might,  with  advantage  to  the  cause, 
share  the  labburs  of  direction  with  those  well- 
meaning  individuals,  whose  zeal,  rather  than 
any  other  quality,  places  them  in  the  front  of 
the  work. 

I  am  extremely  anxious,  my  dear  friend,  to 
abstain  from  whatever  might  seem  invidious; 
but  I  must  now  request  you  to  compare,  for  a 
moment,  the  present  system,  over  which  an- 
archy and  confusion  preside,  and  in  which  a 
number  of  independent  and  unconnected 
bodies  are  feebly  attempting  something  in  all 
kinds,  with  the  proposed  apportionment  of 
peculiar  tasks  to  separate  associations,  each 
of  which  would  be  managed  by  two  or  three 
individuals,  specifically  qualified  to  discharge 
the  part  assigned  to  them.     I  ask  which  of 


32  NEW    MODEL 

the  two  plans  it  is  that  is  recommended  by 
common  sense,  and  the  eternal  laws  of  the 
human  mind,  and  which  it  is  that  asks  for  a 
large  apology  on  the  ground  of  the  inevitable 
imperfection  of  all  human  affairs?  But  let 
me,  for  the  sake  of  giving  more  complete 
illustration  to  the  principle  I  advocate,  de- 
scend, for  a  moment,  to  the  details* of  the 
proposed  arrangement.  We  imagine  then 
the  entire  resources  of  Christian  beneficence 
to  be  decomposed,  and  recast  in  the  form  of 
seven  societies. — 

Of  these,  the  first  would  devote  itself  to  the 
task  of  supplanting  the  Romish  superstition 
by  scriptural  religion,  in  those  countries  that 
still  profess  Popery.  Perhaps  the  chief  and 
most  promising  sphere  of  its  operations  would 
be  found  among  the  Independent  States  of 
South  America.  The  unhappy  Ireland 
would,  of  course,  employ  its  cares,  and  it 
would  lose  no  opportunity  for  introducing  the 
light  of  truth  in  the  Catholic  countries  of  the 
European  Continent.  May  it  be  said  that 
the  predominance  of  the  elementary  idea  of  a 
Christian  Mission,  as  consisting  merely  in  the 
sending  forth  of  preachers,  has,  along  with 
other  causes,  operated  to  prevent  the  employ- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  33 

ment  of  many  subsidiary  means  which  might 
be  had  recourse  to  where  the  establishment 
of  a  Mission,  in  the  primary  sense  of  the 
term,  is  impracticable  ?  Otherwise,  why  is  it 
that  so  little  has  hitherto  been  attempted  in 
behalf  of  Popish  countries  1  Such  attempts 
cannot  be  deemed  unnecessary;  for  our 
principles  as  Protestants  oblige  us  to  regard 
all  as  unchristian,  who  in  fact  do  not  possess 
the  Scriptures.  And  whether  the  mass  of 
the  people  are  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Inspired  Volume,  or  are  suifer- 
ed  by  their  priests  to  know  nothing  more  of 
it  than  the  mere  name,  is  a  matter  of  no  con- 
sequence to  their  spiritual  state ;  for  public 
rites,  whatever  names  may  occur  in  prayers 
and  anthems,  have  never  been  found  to  pos- 
sess efficacy  for  conve3nng  genuine  religious 
sentiments.  It  is  therefore  no  breach  of 
charity  to  presume  that  those  are  not  Chris- 
tians who  have  not  the  Bible  in  their  hands  ; 
and  if  not  Christians,  then  they  are  the  prop- 
er objects  of  Missionary  zeal.  The  only 
question  is  by  what  means  v/e  should  attempt, 
under  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  case, 
to  introduce  scriptural  religion  among  them  ? 
It  is  obvious  that,  in  dealing  vvith  the  populace, 


34  NEW    MODEL 

the  assailable  point  of  the  Romish  religion  is 
its  withholding  the  Bible  from  the  laity.  This 
then  is  the  side  on  which  we  commence  our 
attack.  And  here,  contrary  to  the  usual 
course  of  things,  when  the  promotion  of  truth 
is  our  object,  we  have  the  natural  impulses  of 
the  human  mind  in  our  favour.  No  man, 
we  may  be  assured,  is  ever  heartily  pleased 
with  the  attempts  of  another  to  keep  him  in 
the  dark  ;  and  if  we  would  understand  the 
extreme  difficulty  which  the  Romish  priest- 
hood have  ever  found  in  maintaining  entire 
the  thick  curtain  of  ignorance  which  they 
spread  over  their  victims,  we  have  only  to 
observe  the  irritation — an  irritation  too  great 
to  be  concealed,  which  they  feel  whenever 
attempts  are  made  to  light  the  candle  of 
knowledge  within  the  pale  of  their  church. 
Our  course  is  then  open  before  us.  It  may 
fairly  be  presumed  that  the  formation  of  a 
society  in  England,  candidly  confessing  its 
object  to  be  the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures 
in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  would  have  a 
quickening  influence  upon  the  popular  mind, 
especially  where  there  already  exists  a  resent- 
ful consciousness  of  the  spiritual  tyranny 
which  has  so  long  locked  uj)  the  Book  of 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  35 

God.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  perse- 
vering efforts  of  a  body  of  competent  persons, 
having  at  their  command  a  moderate  revenue, 
would,  in  a  few  years,  in  spite  of  prohibitions, 
render  the  Bible  by  no  means  a  scarce  book 
in  countries  where  at  present  it  is  held  only 
by  stealth.  The  issue  need  not  be  question- 
ed :  as  the  crying  sin  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  the  suppression  of  the  Scriptures,  so,  from 
their  diffusion,  will  it  meet  its  overthrow. 

The  proposed  Society,  freed  from  the  scru- 
ples which  must  confine  it  to  the  Scriptures, 
would  employ  itself  in  issuing — not  feeble,  flip- 
pant, or  irritating  tracts,  but  powerful  treati- 
ses, of  course  condensed  within  a  small  com- 
pass, on  the  principal  questions  at  issue  be- 
tween Protestants  and  Papists  :  or  rather  on 
the  cardinal  points  of  Christianity,  as  deriva- 
ble from  the  Scriptures,  and  with  little  or  no 
reference  to  controversy.  Such  a  society 
would  especially  take  care  to  provide  and  to 
distribute  historical  treatises,  popular  in  their 
style,  and  yet  substantially  learned,  in  which 
the  rise  of  the  Romish  usurpation,  and  the 
origin  of  its  many  corruptions,  would  be  dis- 
tinctly set  forth ;  every  statement  being  sup- 
ported by  reference  to  proper  authorities.    La- 


Ob  NEW    MODEL 

bours  like  these,  and  others  which  of  course 
would  suggest  themselves  to  well  informed 
and  intelligent  men,  would  well  occupy  the 
undiverted  attention  of  the  few  individuals 
whom  the  public  voice  would  call  to  the  diffi- 
cult task.  To  imagine  that  a  chance  com- 
mittee of  some  dozen  or  score  of  good  sort  of 
men,  taken  where  they  may  be  found,  but 
possessing  no  specific  qualifications  for  the  du- 
ties they  are  to  perform,  and  a  committee, 
moreover,  distracted  among  a  hundred  dis- 
similar objects,  can  efficiently  discharge  the 
functions  of  such  a  society  as  I  have  descri- 
bed, is  indeed  to  affront  common  sense  in  a 
manner  that  baffles  reasonable  expostula- 
tion. 

A  second  society  would  assume  to  itself  the 
vast  and  arduous  labour  of  recommending  the 
Christian  faith  to  Mahometan  nations.  Its 
sphere,  alas  !  would  embrace  the  largest  and 
the  fairest  portions  of  the  earth. — The  great- 
er part  of  Asia,  and  of  Africa,  and  a  part 
of  Europe,  are  darkened  by  this  delusion  ! — 
Immense  and  worthy  enterprise !  and  though 
difficult,  yet,  at  the  present  moment,  in  a  high 
degree  hopeful !  But  even  the  hopefulness 
of  the  enterprise  imparts  to  it  a  character  of 


OP    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  37 

awful  responsibility.  Who  among  us,  at  this 
crisis  of  Islamism,  shall  obey  the  call  of  the 
Clnistian  Church,  and  appear  as  the  cham- 
pions of  the  cross  to  contend  against  the 
mighty  !  We  have  not  here  to  engage  on 
the  field  of  reason  and  moral  suasion,  merely 
with  untutored  nomades,  or  with  unsophisti- 
cated islanders,  ignorant  of  every  thing  but 
of  their  paddles  and  their  fruits.  We"  have 
to  do  with  men  as  acute,  if  not  as  well  taught 
as  ourselves ;  with  men  haughty  by  all  the 
recollections  which  remote  history  can  im- 
part ;  with  men  who,  looking  only  at  the  ex- 
trinsic qualities  of  human  nature,  and  the 
obvious  advantages  of  person,  climate,  and 
produce,  may  easily  persuade  themselves  that 
their  contempt  of  the  western  nations  is  not 
absurd.  We  have  to  instruct  and  to  persuade 
the  intellectual,  imaginative,  and  astute  Per- 
sian ;  the  arrogant,  obdurate,  fanatical,  and 
yet  noble-minded  Turk.  Nor  do  our  diffi- 
culties diminish  if  we  descend  among  the  sub- 
civilized  adherents  of  the  Prophet,  scattered 
throughout  India,  the  islands  of  the  Eastern 
Sea,  through  Egypt,  and  northern  Africa. 

For  the  style  in  wliich  the  Mahometan 
should  be  encountered,  an  example,  never  to 
4 


88  NEW  MODEL 

be  lost  sight  of,  has  been  set  by  Henry  Mar* 
tyn :  and  though,  "of  course,  companies  of 
such  men  are  not  to  be  found ;  yet  whoever 
is  sent  forth  to  labour  in  this  field,  should 
possess  qualifications  of  the  same  class. — 
Nor  can  kindred  qualities  be  dispensed  with  in 
those  who  at  home  are  to  direct  the  work. 
In  conducting  a  Mission  to  Mahometan  na- 
tions, is  it  enough  that  men  should  be  zeal- 
ous, prayerful,  kind-hearted]  Is  it  enough 
that  they  should  be  expert  in  managing  those 
details  of  business  which  are  common  to  a 
Missionary  Society  with  every  other  charita- 
ble institution?  Or  is  it  enough  that  they 
should  be  competent  to  read  sound  theologi- 
cal lectures  to  candidates  for  the  work,  or 
that,  in  sending  out  their  Missionaries,  they 
should  be  able  to  address  to  them  powerful 
and  pathetic  harangues  7  Is  it,  in  a  word^ 
enough,  that  they  should  be  just  qualified  to 
do  that  which  should  be  done  if  we  had  only 
to  send  out  a  company  of  preachers  to  ofla- 
ciate  in  the  chapels  of  an  English  colony  ? 
All  this  is  not  enough.  The  projectors  and 
managers  of  such  an  attack  upon  Mahome-. 
tanism  as  the  present  moment  invites,  should 
be  the  four  or  five  individuals  who  might  be 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  S9 

picked  out  from  the  fourteen  millions  of  our 
population.  And  these  four  or  five  gifted 
men  should  be  solemnly  called  forth  by  the 
voice  of  the  Christian  public,  and  should  be 
placed  in  a  condition  in  which  they  might 
freely  devote  the  undistracted  attention  of 
their  remaining  years  to  the  great  work. 
And  let  the  agency  of  these  individuals  be  as 
much  blended  as  you  please  with  influence 
of  a  more  popular  kind ;  and  let  public  opin- 
ion bear  with  its  whole  force  upon  whatever 
they  do.  We  want  no  snug  or  sleeping  se- 
cresy;  but  we  absolutely  need  qualified  and 
permanent  agents  for  the  achievement  of 
difficult  tasks. 

Beside  the  direct  method  of  sending  Chris- 
tian teachers  where  they  may  be  admitted  in 
Mahometan  countries,  and  of  circulating  the 
Scriptures,  the  peculiar  state  of  the  nations 
professing  Islamism  invites  the  adoption  of 
other  measures  of  a  more  general  kind. — 
Under  the  direction  of  a  sub-committee,  it 
might,  for  instance,  be  attempted  to  lay  before 
the  more  advanced  of  the  Mahometan  na- 
tions, the  bait  of  European  philosophy,  sci- 
ence, and  art;  and  we  might  even  tempt 
them  to  move  forward  on  the  course  cf  im- 


40  NEW    MODEL 

provement  by  explaining  the  principles,  and 
exhibiting  the  advantages  of  our  social  econ- 
omy and  political  institutions.  By  these 
means,  without  obtruding  invidious  compari- 
sons, we  might  generate  among  them  that 
salutary  sense  of  inferiority  which  is  the  pri- 
mary elem'ent  of  improvement.  This  feeling 
would  relax  the  cords  of  national  and  reli- 
gious bigotry,  would  rob  the  Asiatic  of  his 
absurd  superciliousness,  and  give  him  in  the 
place  of  it,  the  manly  desire  to  deal  with 
Europeans  on  terms  of  real  equality. 

A  society,  constituted  as  I  have  imagined, 
might  carry  on  literary  correspondence  with 
intelligent  orientals,  and  might  invite  the  visits 
of  such  persons  to  our  country,  and  especially 
might  induce  the  sending  of  young  men  to 
our  universities,  for  the  benefit  of  English 
education.  It  would  of  course  also  be 
attempted  to  furnish  the  educated  classes  in 
Mahometan  countries  with  a  veritable  and 
exact  knowledge  of  modern  historj- — secular 
and  sacred.  No  subsidiary  means,  perhaps, 
would  better  tend  to  dis^pate  the  illusion 
which  beguiles  the  followers  of  the  Prophet.- 
In  executing  this  task,  the  safe  path  of  perfect 
candour  should  be  adhered  to,  and  the  history 


or   CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.  41 

of  Christicanity — unglozed,  and  unveiled^ 
should  be  held  forth,  and  it  should  manifestly 
appear  that  the  force  of  ti'uth  is  confided  in 
by  those  who  make  these  disclosures. 

The  pious  need  not  be  alarmed  lest,  in  pur- 
suing measures  of  this  kind,  we  should  too 
much  secularize  the  business  of  a  Christian 
Mission.  They  who  are  wise  well  know  how 
to  bestow  separate  attention  upon  dissimilar 
means,  while  pursuing  a  great  and  ultimate 
object.  Besides  our  Missionary  Societies 
ah-eady  busy  themselves,  and  very  properly 
in  the  establishment  of  manufactories,  and  in 
the  encouragement  of  commerce,  as  the 
means  of  humanizing  savage  tribes.  All 
that  we  would  do  then,  is  to  accommodate 
our  subsidiary  means  to  the  condition  of  the 
people  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  We  send 
a  loom  or  a  plough  to  Taheite ;  but  we  must 
treat  the  Pei'sian  in  a  different  manner. 

The  Society  already  existing  for  promoting 
Christianity  among  the  Jews,  may  here  be 
mentioned  as  occupying  a  third  place  in  our 
proposed  series. 

A  fomth  Missionary  Society  would  under- 
4* 


42  NEW   MODEI* 

take  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel  among 
the  polytheistic  nations  of  southern  Asia,  and 
the  numerous  islands  in  the  Eastern  Sea. 
And  you  will  not  deny  that  enough  is  inclu- 
ded in  this  sphere  of  labour  to  occupy  the 
undistracted  attention  of  all  among  us  who 
are  at  once  qualified  and  disposed,  to  give 
their  lives  to  the  task.  Without  affecting  to 
disparage  what  has  already  been  accomplished 
in  India,  it  may  fahly  be  affirmed,  that  at  the 
rate  at  which  the  conquests  of  Christianity 
are  proceeding  there,  ages  must  elapse  before 
that  strongest  hold  of  abominable  idolatry 
will  be  vanquished,  or  those  fair  regions  of  the 
sun  purged  of  their  impurities,  and  brought 
to  offer  gifts,  "gold,  frankincense,  and  myrrh," 
to  the  King  of  kings.  Ere  a  twentieth  por- 
tion of  the  population  now  subject  to  our 
sway,  and  now  looking  to  us  for  theh*  desti- 
nies, has  ever  heard  of  Christianity,  the  mir- 
acle of  our  power  in  India  may  have  come 
to  its  end,  and  the  remams  of  the  last  Eng- 
lish army  that  shall  ever  unfurl  its  colours  hi 
the  East,  may  have  hastened  to  their  ships 
from  its  shores.  We  have  then  not  a  year, . 
or  a  day,  to  lose  in  desultory  and  divided  ef- 
forts.    If  we  could  fmd  motives  nowhere  else, 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  43 

we  might  find  more  than  enough  in  the  extra- 
ordinary advantages  which,  at  the  present 
moment,  we  possess  for  Christianizing  India, 
to  induce  us  to  dissolve  the  present  inefficient 
and  wasteful  system  of  Missionary  efforts,  and 
to  adopt  a  better.  In  truth,  it  might  seem 
wise,  almost,  while  the  resources  of  Christian 
philanthropy  are  so  limited,  to  withdraw  our 
expenditure  from  every  other  point,  and  to 
concentrate  our  force  upon  these  nations, 
now,  in  so  remarkable  a  manner,  committed 
to  our  responsibility.  The  men  of  other  hea- 
then nations  are  indeed  our  brethren,  and 
should  be  cared  for ;  but  the  nations  of  India 
have  come  under  our  roof,  and  have  drawn 
around  our  hearth  ;  and  their  miseries  must 
instantly  be  relieved.  And  shall  we  be  talk- 
ing of  our  scruples,  and  stickling  upon  ob- 
scure questions  of  church  government,  and 
standing  stiffly  and  stupidly  within  our  petty 
enclosures,  while  the  people  of  India,  in 
millions— our  subjects,  our  servants,  our 
children,  are  perishing  in  the  fangs  of  their 
daemon  gods  1  Shall  we  "  call  hv  water" — 
the  holy  water  of  hypocrisy — ^wherein  to 
"  wash  our  hands"  from  the  blood  of  widows, 
and  infants,  which  is  running  past  us  like  a 


44  NEW  MODEL 

winter  torrent  ?  But  you  say  that  this  is  not 
our  guilt ;  or  not  the  guilt  of  the  Christian 
public  in  England.  We  have  a  zeal  for 
the  salvation  of  the  people  of  India;  we 
spend  thousands  in  her  behalf;  our  preachers 
lay  down  their  lives  in  her  service.  This  is 
true,  and  doubtless  our  labours  come  up  as  a 
memorial  for  us  in  the  court  of  Heaven. — 
But  the  question  returns — whether  we  are 
doing  the  best  we  might  for  India ;  or  wheth- 
er we  are  not  rather  drivelling  in  our  zeal, 
than  acting  with  the  discretion  of  men  1 

f 
The  fifth  of  these  evangelical  corporations 

should  assume  to  itself  the  task  of  attacking 
the  iiTcligion  of  China ;  and  as  our  attempts 
in  that  direction,  though  attended  with  pecul- 
iar difficulties,  are  not  likely  soon  to  cover  an 
extensive  surface,  the  same  society  might  in- 
clude within  its  sphere  the  nations  of  north- 
em  Asia. 

The  African  race,  central,  western,  and 
southern;  but  excluding  the  Mahometan  na- 
tions of  the  northern  and  eastern  coast,  and 
including  the  enslaved  negro  of  the  West 
Indies,    would   employ  a  sixth  association; 


OF    CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.  45 

while  the  aborigines  of  the  two  Americas, 
and  the  islanders  of  the  great  Pacific,  would 
fall  to  the  lot  of  the  seventh. 

Thus  should  we  have  divided  among  us  the 
great  family  of  man !  Vast  apportionment ! 
and  at  first  appearance  perhaps  ambitious,  or 
chimerical ;  but  not  so  to  the  eye  of  experi- 
enced benevolence.  We  know  the  work  is 
immense  ;  but  we  hear  distinctly  the  call  of 
Heaven  to  engage  in  it ;  we  know  by  actual 
experiment  of  what  quality  the  labour  is ;  we 
Imow  by  proof  that  success  is  not  impossible  ; 
nay,  we  know  it  to  be  the  probable  issue  of  well 
directed  and  persevering  endeavours.  Who 
are  the  people  that  are  now  devising  the  con- 
quest of  the  earth  to  the  faith  of  Christ,  but 
the  descendants  of  barbarians  who  were  con- 
verted to  the  same  faith  by  the  same  means  ! 

If  any  one  shall  talk  to  us  of  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  the  enterprise,  we  shall  reply  to 
him,  first — that  we  rely  upon  the  aid  and 
promise  of  God;  and  secondly,  that  we  intend 
to  employ  our  best  discretion,  as  well  as  to  use 
our  utmost  energy  in  the  business :  we  set 
about  it  therefore  piously  ;  but  not  presump- 
tuously.    We  keep  distinctly  in  view    the 


46  NEW   MODEL 

double  principle,  equally  true  and  important 
in  both  its  parts,  that  the  work  before  us  is 
the  work  of  God;  yet  not  less  the  work  of 
man. 

It  is  very  probable  that  some  other  arrange- 
ment than  the  one  above  described,  and 
which  I  have  particularized  only  for  the  sake 
of  exemplifying  the  general  principle,  might 
more  advantageously  be  adopted.  Still  the 
great  law  of  the  partition  of  labour  would 
determine  the  plan,  however  it  might  be  mod- 
ified. 

I  wish  most  carefully  to  avoid  whatever 
might  seem  invidious,  or  whatever  might  be 
misinterpreted  as  intended  to  disparage  the 
character  and  labours  of  men  who  are  held 
by  the  Churches  in  deserved  veneration.  It 
must,  however,  be  permitted  to  me  to  con- 
template, for  a  moment,  the  existing  consti- 
tution of  our  Missionary  Societies,  considered 
as  a  whole,  and  as  a  scheme  of  human  agen- 
cy, devised  to  accomplish  a  difficult  object. 

It  is  perfectly  known  that,  except  on  pe- 
culiar occasions,  the  actual  business  of  every 
charitable  institution  is  transacted  by  a  very 
small  number  of  zealous  individuals,  who 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  47 

perhaps  are  as  often  thwarted  and  embarras- 
sed, as  aided  by  their  colleagues.  Of  neces- 
sity, therefore,  it  must  be  that  when  a  society 
occupies  an  extensive  and  various  field  of 
labour,  the  few  efficient  individuals  are  compel- 
led, often  at  the  expense  of  health  and  peace 
of  mind,  to  give  their  distracted  attention,  in 
rapid  succession,  now  to  the  home  concerns 
of  the  society,  and  now  to  its  foreign  opera- 
tions ;  and  these  foreign  operations  are  of  the 
most  dissimilar  character.  Placed  in  circum- 
stances so  perplexing,  what  can  be  expected, 
even  from  the  most  accomplished  talent,  and 
the  most  unwearied  assiduity,  but  a  vague, 
inappropriate,  and  almost  imbecile  suffusion 
of  mental  strength  over  the  immense  surface 
of  affairs.  And  what  can  be  expected  from 
zeal  so  disadvantaged,  but  a  waste  of  resour- 
ces upon  projects  which,  though  they  might 
have  succeeded  had  they  enjoyed  the  benefit 
of  undiverted  counsels,  could  not  but  fail 
when  they  shared  attention  with  a  multitude 
of  dissimilar  concerns  1 

And  let  us  turn  into  another  sti^eet,  and 
enter  another  "upper-chamber"  of  Chris- 
tian business ;  and  there  see  another  little 
laiot  of  zealous  men,  distracting  themselves 


48  NEW    MODEL 

by  an  almost  fruitless  attention  to  the  very 
same  extended  circle  of  multifarious  objects. 
Again  we  may  visit  another,  and  yet  another 
committee — not  each  concentrating  its  forces 
upon  a  single  specific  object — not  each  con- 
stituted of  individuals  personally  qualified  for 
the  tasks  they  severally  undertake  ;  but  each 
promiscuously  gathered  from  the  narrovsr  cir- 
cle of  a  particular  party,  and  each  burdened, 
and  over-burdened  by  the  well-meant  ambi- 
tion of  etfecting  something  at  all  points,  and 
something  of  all  kinds.  And  does  this  Mis- 
sionary system  approve  itself  to  reason  1  or  is 
it  not  rather  a  most  ruinous  chaos,  in  which, 
though  pure  motives  may  be  very  conspicuous, 
manly  wisdom  is  not  at  all  seen  1 

The  question  is  not  whether  the  revenues 
of  an  empire  ought  to  be  grudged  as  the  price 
of  rescuing  even  a  single  human  soul  from 
perdition ;  but  whether  we  are  not  solemnly 
bound  to  do  the  best  possible  with  our  means, 
limited  as  they  are  ?  The  question  before  us 
is  whether,  in  conducting  our  labom'S  for  the 
benefit  of  manliind,  we  •  shall  conform  our- 
selves to  those  unalterable  laws  of  intellectua] 
and  mechanical  labour  which  take  their  rise 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  human  mind;   or 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  49 

set  all  such  methods  at  defiance,  and,  content- 
ing ourselves  with  the  consciousness  of  the 
purest  intentions,  and  of  the  utmost  possible 
diligence,  shall  cast  our  efforts  upon  the 
winds,  hoping  that  Heaven,  in  its  wisdom, 
will  direct  them  for  good. 

You  may  tell  me  perhaps,  that  the  well- 
known  advantages  of  competition  belong  to 
the  present  system  of  Missionary  exertion, 
and  that  our  several  societies  act  beneficially 
upon  each  other — "provoking  one  another  to 
love,  and  to  good  works."  I  reply,  in  the 
first  place,  that  the  benefits  derivable  fi^-om  the 
nvalry  of  sects  are  of  a  very  ambiguous  kind ; 
and  in  the  second  place,  that  the  stimulus  of 
competition,  perfectly  freed  from  the  acrid- 
ness  of  party-feeling,  would  belong  to  the 
scheme  I  advocate.  Each  of  the  societies 
above  named,  constituted  promiscuously  of 
men  of  different  communions,  would  have 
before  it  a  fair  course  of  emulation,  on  which 
by  skill  and  assiduity,  to  win  for  itself  its 
proper  share  of  public  favour. 

In  such  a  system,  public  support  would  be 
distributed  much  more  advantageously  than  it 
can  at  present.  Indeed  one  can  hardly  im- 
agine a  more  disadvantageous  or  wasteful 
5 


50  .  NEW    MODEL 

method  of  apportioning  the  whole  amount  of 
Missionary  contributions  than  the  one  actually 
in  operation,  which  doles  out  the  revenues  of 
Christian  liberality,  not  in  any  proportion  to 
the  nature  or  extent  of  the  work  to  be  perfor- 
med at  the  several  points  of  the  great  enter- 
prise ;  but  according  to  the  most  arbitrary  of 
all  possible  rules — ^the  opulence  or  poverty  of 
each  sect.  Now  it  may  often  happen  that  a 
less  opulent  society  has  taken  possession  of  a 
field  where  the  largest  revenues  might  with 
peculiar  propriety  be  expended  :  while  on  the 
contrary  another  society,  which,  from  the 
wealth  or  extent  of  the  party  to  which  it  be- 
longs, has  at  its  disposal  five  times  the  income, 
may  be  spending  its  means  on  a  large  surface 
to  little  purpose.  It  is  as  if,  in  managing  the 
finances  of  an  empire,  the  millions  of  its  rev- 
enue were  thrown  into  the  wheel  of  chance, 
to  be  drawn  thence  by  the  several  ministers 
of  state,  as  luck  may  determine :  thus,  while 
a  subordinate  department  would  be  glutted 
with  affluence,  the  most  necessary  affairs 
might  suffer  ruinous  deprivation. 

You  remind  me  that  popular  opinion  is  lia- 
ble to  caprices  and  errors.  This  is  true;  but 
its  caprices^are  never  so  great  as  those  of 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  51 

mere  chance.  If  we  include  any  considerable 
portion  of  time,  public  opinion  is  found  to 
obey  the  ^  oice  of  reason,  and  to  follow  the 
leading  of  facts.  If  therefore  the  Missionary 
work  were,  without  regard  to  party,  appor- 
tioned to  several  independent  societies,  each 
having  its  peculiar  sphere,  and  each  depend- 
ing, yearly,  for  the  amount  of  its  income  upon 
the  claims  it  could  substantiate  to  public  fa- 
vour, there  would  take  place  (particular  in- 
stances excepted)  a  highly  advantageous  flux 
of  Christian  liberality  towards  the  points 
where  it  would  produce  the  best  effects.  Or, 
to  borrow  $l  phrase  from  physiological  sci- 
ence, the  special  occasions  of  the  whole  sys- 
tem would  hi  supplied  by  an  instantaneous 
determination^  forces,  in  this  or  that  direc- 
tion. ^ 

But  you  lay  that,  on  peculiar  occasions, 
something  of  this  sort  has  actually  taken 
place ;  and  less  opulent  societies  have  success- 
fully appealed  to  the  liberality  of  the  Chris- 
tian public;  But  at  how  great  a  cost  of  la- 
bour, and'anxiety,  and  deranged  movement, 
have  such'  extraordinary  supplies  been  obtain- 
ed !  and  at  the  best  they  have  given  only 
temporary  aid  where  permanent  support  was 


52  NEW    MODEL 

in  fact  as  much  wanted  as  instantaneous  as- 
sistance. Our  proposed  new  system  would 
adapt  itself  to  such  occasions  both  more  rea- 
dily and  more  efficaciously. 

That  the  work  of  converting  the  heathen 
should,  in  the  first  instance,  have  been 
attempted  by  the  several  sects  separately  was 
inevitable,  under  the  then  existing  circum- 
stances of  the  church.  And  that  so  much 
has  actually  been  effected  amid  the  disadvan- 
tages of  a  method  so  faulty  and  so  feeble, 
affords  a  strilcing  proof  of  the  intrinsic  vigour 
of  Christian  motives. — Thus  when  the  peo- 
ple of  a  country  that  groans  beneath  a  for- 
eign yoke  rise,  and  without  concert,  without 
a  leader,  and  in  detached  parties,  actually 
make  head  against  the  common  enemy,  they 
give  the  most  incontestible  evidence  of  the 
force  and  genuineness  of  that  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism which  moves  them :  and  it  may  be  confi- 
dently said,  that  the  energies  of  such  a  people 
want  nothing  but  to  be  skilfully  directed  to 
achieve  a  perfect  triumph.  And  thus  too 
may  it  be  affirmed,  that  if  the  Christian  body, 
torn  as  it  is,  has  in  a  few  years  accomplished 
so  much,  the  same  zeal,  wisely  economised, 
would  presently  win  signal  successes. 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS  53 

The  ordinary  course  of  human  affairs 
leads  us  to  suppose  that,  in  the  progTess  of  an 
enterprise  so  novel  and  difficult,  some  very 
considerable  changes  in  the  construction  of 
its  machinery  must  become  necessary. — 
Nothing  that  is  complicated  is  weW  done  at 
first ;  and  if  the  modern  missionary  zeal  did 
in  fact,  at  its  very  outset,  reach  the  maturity 
of  wisdom,  v^e  ought  indeed  to  believe  that 
its  birth  was,  in  the  most  proper  sense,  mirac- 
ulous. But  the  intelligent  friends  of  our 
Missionary  Societies  vidll  not  advance  a  pre- 
tension of  this  sort ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
will  readily  admit  that  our  endeavours  to  dif- 
fuse the  Gospel  are,  in  all  respects,  liable  to 
the  common  conditions  of  human  agency ; 
and  that,  as  they  are  obnoxious  to  error,  so 
are  they  open  to  amendment ;  and  we  must 
expect  them  to  succeed  or  to  be  overthrown, 
not  so  much  according  to  the  purity  of  the 
motives  by  which  they  are  prompted,  as  in 
proportion  to  the  discretion  with  which  they 
are  managed.  The  supporters  of  missions 
have  devoted  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
good  of  their  fellow-creatures,  not  merely 
their  money,  and  their  time,  and  the  fervour 
of  their  hearts,  but  the  best  vigour  of  their 
5* 


64  NEW    MODEL  &C. 

understandings ;  and  a  vigorous  understanding 
is  distinguished  from  a  feeble  one  by  the 
promptitude  with  which  it  employs  itself  in 
re^^sing  its  own  proceedings,  and  by  its  eager- 
ness to  do  better  what  it  has  done  amiss. 

I  affirm  then,  that  unless  some  difficulty 
absolutely  insurmountable,  compels  us  to 
submit  to  'the  existing  system,  and  to  bend 
patiently  under  all  its  immense  disadvantages, 
that  system  ought  instantly  to  give  place  to  a 
better.  I  hope,  ere  I  conclude  these  letters, 
to  convince  yon— first,  that  no  insuperable 
obstacle  stands  in  the  way  of  the  proposed 
reform ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  New  Model 
which  I  have  described,  besides  its  being  ne- 
cessary as  a  means  of  success,  is  recommen- 
ded by  moral  and  religious  considerations  of 
a  kind  that  ought  of  themselves  to  secure  the 
compliance  of  every  one  who  confesses  obe- 
dience to  Chiist. 


LETTER  II. 

"have  ye  not  bead  what  DAVID  DID,  A^D  THEY  THAT 
WERE  WITH  HIM  7 — " 

My  Dear  Friemd. 

Religion  is  possessed  by  the  church  in  eve- 
ry age  as  a  patrimony,  handed  down  irorn  the 
fathers  to  the  sons ;  but  it  is  not  an  unincum- 
bred  patrimony ;  and  if  our  Christian  ances- 
tors deserve  our  veneration  for  having  preser- 
ved to  us  the  faith — often  at  the  cost  of  their 
lives  or  worldly  interests,  we  are  entitled  to 
make  some  small  deduction ;  from  the  debt 
of  gratitude  on  account  of  the  serious  injury 
and  the  many  inconveniences  we  sustain 
from  the  discords  they  have  delivered  into  our 
keeping,  and  from  the  lasting  ill  consequences 
of  the  divisions  which  their  disputes  engender- 
ed, and  which  we  think  ourselves  bound  to 
maintain.  Even  their  wisdom  and  virtue 
does  us  a  harm,  inasmuch  as  they  operate  to 
restrain  us  from  attempting  to  rid  ourselves  of 


56  NEW    MODEL 

what  might  be  relinquished  with  vast  advan- 
tage. 

Those  who  stand  somewhat  aloof  from  the 
centimes  of  party-feeling,  and  who  accustom 
themselves  to  contemplate  things  around 
them  from  the  vantage  ground  of  what — for 
want  of  a  better  term — we  must  call  the 
point  of  philosophical  speculation,  cannot  but 
perceive  that  Christians  of  all  denominations 
are  sadly  crippled  in  judgment,  and  fettered 
in  understanding,  by  the  reluctance  felt  to  re- 
nounce an  iota  of  what  they  have  received 
as  their  heritage  of  religious  principles  from 
the  venerated  founders  of  the  sect.  Events — 
more  powerful  than  arguments,  must  come  to 
the  aid  of  the  universal  church  when  the 
time  of  emancipation  arrives.  We  have  long 
and  fruitlessly  listened  to  all  that  can  be  said 
or  written  on  certain  well  known  themes. 
Or,  even  if  a  new  and  a  clearer  method  of 
treating  these  subjects  were  to  prevail,  and 
existing  errors  on  all  sides  were  to  be  demon- 
strated, the  consequent  work  of  reformation 
would  be  found  to  be  attended  with  inextrica- 
ble difficulties,  and  perhaps  with  dangers :  nor 
does  it  appear  that,  at  the  present  time,  there 
are  any  to  whom  all  parties  would  instinc- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  51 

tively  look  up  as  qualified  for  the  arduous 
work  of  reconstructing-  the  Christian  Church 
on  a  model  of  perfect  symmetry.  We  must, 
then,  wait  the  appointed  season  of  renova- 
tion ; — Time,  the  great  innovator,  must  also 
discharge  the  function  of  reformer. 

Meanwhile,  all  right-minded  men,  well 
aware  as  they  are  of  the  imperfections  that 
attach  to  the  present  condition  of  Christiani- 
ty, and  earnestly  looking  forward  to  a  brighter 
era,  take  care  on  all  occasions,  and  to  the 
utmost  extent  which  consistency  permits,  to 
lean  to  the  side  of  a  true  Catholicism ;  and 
both  in  spirit  and  in  practice,  step,  as  far  as 
they  may,  over  hues  of  demarcation,  and 
seize,  by  anticipation,  the  blessings  and  ad- 
vantages of  that  better  state  of  things  which 
they  hope  for.  Those  auspicious  inconsisten- 
cies into  which  the'spiiitlof  charity  continually 
leads  good  men,  of  all  parties,  have  especially 
abounded  on  the  field  of  Missionary  labour; 
for  while  each  party  thinks  itself  obliged,  in 
conscience,  to  despatch  shipments  of  its  pecu- 
liarities to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  to  take 
all  the  care  it  can  that  Hindoos,  Hottentots, 
and  savage  islanders,  shall  worship  after  the 
right  manner ;  yet,  at  the  very  same  tiriae. 


58  NEW   MODEL 

each,  with  unquestionable  cordiality  and  joy, 
hails  the  successes  of  the  others,  and  with 
prompt  sympathy  lends  aid  on  peculiar  occa- 
sions. 

At  the  present  moment  there  exists,  among 
the  supporters  of  Missions,  almost  as  perfect 
a  union  of  heart  as  can  be  wished  for. — Noth- 
ing of  disunion  remains  among  us  but  its  im- 
mense practical  disadvantage,  and  its  oppro- 
brium in  the  eye  of  the  world.  If  at  this 
time  it  might  be  suspected  that  a  concealed 
sentiment  of  hostility  towards  each  other  lurks 
in  the  hearts  of  Christians — if  there  were  rea- 
son to  think  that  they  are  not  only  divided, 
but  inimical,  in  that  case,  the  idea  of  effect- 
ing a  combination  must  be  deemed  chimeri- 
cal. But  the  reverse  is  the  fact :  the  forms 
of  warfare  only  are  kept  up,  while  the  spirit 
of  aggression  has  long  since  fled.  Yet  it  is 
supposed,  that  though  dissociation  be  a  great 
evil,  it  can  in  no  way  be  avoided.  The  con- 
trary, I  think,  may  be  demonstrated.  The 
real  difficulty  has  already  been  overpassed  by 
us,  and  nothing  but  an  imaginary  obstacle 
stands  in  the  way  of  the  undisturbed  co-ope- 
ration of  all  parties  in  the  Missionary  cause. 
I  Hope  to  make  good  this  assertion. 


OF    CHRISTIAM    MISSIONS.  59 

If  the  opinion  of  Christians  on  the  subject 
of  Missions  may  be  fairly  inferred  from  their 
practice,  it  might  be  expressed  in  some  such 
terms  as  the  following : — "  We  do,  indeed, 
think  ourselves  obliged  to  send  to  heathen  na- 
tions our  particular  shade  of  doctrine,  and  our 
model  of  discipline  and  worship,  which  we 
believe  to  be,  of  all  others,  the  one  most 
nearly  conformed  to  the  canon  of  truth.  Nev- 
ertheless, far  from  supposing  these  peculiari- 
ties to  be  essential  to  Christianity,  or  from 
deeming  it  imlawful  to  aid  the  propagation  of 
our  common  faith  under  other  evangelical 
forms,  we  hail,  with  delight,  every  occasion 
on  which  we  can  express  om^  large  sympa- 
thies by  directing  the  superfluity  of  our  resour- 
ces into  other  cnannels  than  our  own.  We 
are  most  glad  to  diffuse  the  blessings  of  the 
Gospel  by  all  means,  even  though  it  should 
go  forth  clad  in  a  costume  not  to  our  taste, 
or  encumbered  by  excrescences  which  we 
condemn.  So  long  as  salvation  by  Christ  is 
preached  m  simplicity  and  sincerity,  we  re- 
joice, and  we  more  than  rejoice ;  for  we  give 
the  hand  of  assistance,  whenever  they  need 
it,  to  the  brethren  from  whom  we  dissent." 

Such — putting  out  of  the  account  a  few 


60  NEW    MODEL 

singularly-contracted  spirits,  is,  I  think,  a  fair 
interpretation  of  the  conduct  of  serious  Chris- 
tians at  the  present  time ;  and  we  may  read 
in  it  a  very  distinct  recognition  of  the  doctrine 
— and  a  most  important  doctrine  it  is — That 
no  culpable  compromise  of  principle  is  impli- 
ed in  aiding  the  spread  of  Christianity  abroad 
under  other  forms  than  the  one  which,  as  in- 
dividuals, we  most  approve.  This  capital 
rule  of  conduct  has  been  unconsciously  fra- 
med, rather  under  the  dictation  of  sound  feel- 
ings, than  by  the  logic  of  reason. — I  rest  the 
whole  stress  of  the  argument  pursued  in  these 
letters  upon  this  foundation;  and  that  I  may 
not  seem  to  draw  too  hasty  an  inference  from 
facts,  I  must  place  the  subject  in  several  points 
of  view. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  may  be  affirm- 
ed generally,  that  whoever  has  contributed  a 
mite  to  the  support  of  a  Mission,  not  conduct- 
ed by  his  own  party,  or  has  given  his  pre- 
sence and  approving  smile  at  the  convocation 
of  any  such  society,  or  has  occupied  a  place 
on  its  hustings,  or  bestowed  upon  it  an  effort 
of  his  eloquence  ; — whoever  has  uttered  a 
sentiment  of  pleasure  in  hearing  oithe  succes- 
ses of  other  societies,  or  has  breathed  a  pray- 


OF    CHTISTIAN    MISSIONS.  6l 

er  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel — a  prayer  not 
restricted  to  the  exertions  of  his  own  party — 
that  man  has  already  trespassed  as  far  over 
the  bounds  of  religious  scrupulosity  as  he  would 
have  occasion  to  do  in  falling  in  with  the  pro- 
posed plan  of  union.  He  has  virtually  declar- 
ed, that  he  thinks  it  lawful,  and  even  becom- 
ing to  a  Christian,  to  give  his  aid  in  promul- 
gating what  he  deems  a  defective  or  encum- 
bered system  of  doctrine  and  discipline.  I 
request  you,  my  dear  jfriend,  to  fix  your  clo- 
sest attention  upon  the  facts  to  which  I  ad- 
vert, and  to  show  me  wherein  the  inference 
I  derive  from  them  is  unsound. 

Or  let  it  be  imagined  that,  from  whatever 
cause,  the  apparatus  of  some  one  of  the  exis- 
ting Missionary  Societies  was  broken  up,  and 
its  foreign  stations  a.bandoned.  I  ask  wheth- 
er every  one  of  the  members  of  that  dissolved 
society,  or  every  one  whose  attachment  to 
Christianity  is  rational  and  sincere,  would  not 
hold  himself  bound  instantly  to  devote  to  some 
other  society,  the  whole  amount  of  his  wont- 
ed contributions  1  Could  any  one,  unless  his 
heart  were  frozen  in  sectarianism,  allow  him- 
self, under  such  circumstances,  to  say,  "  My 
Missionary  Society  is  extinct  ;-r-I  have,  there- 
6 


62  NEW   MODEL 

fore,  now  no  opportunity  left  me,  conscien- 
tiously, for  taking  part  in  the  great  cause  ?" 
Such  a  conclusion,  if  it  were  not  the  cloak 
of  niggardliness,  would  certainly  be  the  ex- 
pression of  a  worse  than  popish  bigotry ;  worse, 
because  it  exists  in  the  broad  light  of  Protest- 
antism. A  Christian  philanthropist  is,  no 
doubt,  free  to  choose  the  mode  in  which  he 
will  promote  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-crea- 
tures ;  but  he  w^ould  abhor  to  think  himself 
free  to  withdraw  from  the  labours  of  benefi- 
cence :  he  scorns  to  give  ear  to  any  plea  that 
would  exempt  him  from  the  demands  of  char- 
ity on  his  purse ;  he  will  break  through  every 
restraint  of  habit,  or  taste,  or  party  preference, 
rather  than  be  debarred  from  sharing  in  the 
blessedness  of  going  about  to  do  good. 

It  is  then  not  an  unlawful  act  to  send  abroad 
what  we  deem  a  defective  or  an  encumbered 
form  of  Christianity.  Nay,  it  would  be  un- 
lawful to  refuse  to  do  so  if  the  alternative  were 
to'  propagate  the|Gospel  in  that  form,  or  not 
at  all.  Indeed  we  may  go  a  step  further,  and 
say  it  would  be  both  lawful  and  laudable  to 
.act  in  this  manner  under  such  circumstances 
as.  the  following. — Let  it  be  supposed  that, 
suddenly,  an  extensive  and  promising  field  of 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  63 

exertion  opened  itself  before  some  one  of  our 
Missionary  Societies ;  and  that  this  field,  while 
it  called  for  exertions  on  a  large  and  costly 
scale,  gave  the  most  reasonable  hopes  of  com- 
plete success.  I  ask  then  whether,  in  such  a 
case,  an  appeal  to  the  Christian  world  from 
the  directors  of  the  favoured  society  would 
be  made  in  vain  ?  Would  the  necessary  aid 
actually  be  denied ;  or  in  granting  such  aid, 
would  it  be  attempted,  by  any  party,  to  em- 
barrass the  proceedings  of  the  managers  in 
the  very  moment  of  auspicious  activity,  by 
requiring  them  first  to  revise  their  modes  and 
forms,  and  to  substitute  this  observance  and 
ceremony,  for  that?  Would  any  one,  whose 
heart  is  indeed  warmed  with  the  principles_of 
our  religion,  make  a  demur  in  gi^^ng  what  he 
gave,  or  restrict  the  pounds  and  pence  of  his 
gratuity  to  such  purposes  only  as  it  might  least 
shock  his  punctilious  zeal  to  promote  1  No 
such  wretched  caution,  would,  I  think,  be 
thought  of,  at  such  a  moment ;  but  rather  the 
animating  hope  of  at  length  witnessing  an  ex- 
tensive triumph  of  the  cross — whatever  pecul- 
iarities of  worship  might  attend  it,  would  im- 
petuously beavr  away  all  lesser  feelings,  and  a 
torrent  of  liberality  would  flow  towards  the 


64  isE\W    MODEL 


scene  of  hopeful  enterprise.  Any  other  sup 
position  than  this  might  justly  be  deemed  a 
calumny  upon  the  religious  public — a  calum- 
ny contradicted  by  facts  which  every  one  re- 
collects. 

But  in  the  case  here  supposed  we  have  ap- 
proached very  near  to  the  proposition  actual- 
ly before  us ;  for  a  fair  inference  carries  us 
from  one  position  to  the  other. — It  is  affirmed, 
and  surely  on  no  very  slight  grounds,  that  a 
plan  of  co-operation,  in  which  all  party  dis- 
tinction should  be  merged,  would  greatly  pro- 
mote the  spread  of  the  Gospel  among  the 
heathen.  To  deny  this  probability  is  to  con- 
tradict the  voice  of  universal  experience  in  all 
matters  of  difficult  achievement  Here  then 
is  a  demand  made  upon  all  parties  to  concede 
their  peculiarities ;  and,  for  the  promotion  of 
the  great  cause  in  which  we  are  engaged,  to 
adopt  those  measures  which  are  recommen- 
ded by  sound  reason,  and  which  common 
sense  would  long  ago  have  led  us  to  adopt, 
if  sectarian  interests  had  not  stood  in  the 
way. 

And  now  what  is  the  obstacle  that  prevents 
our  doing  so,  but  the  one  which  has  already 
been  overpassed,  again  and  again,  by  all  par- 


1 


OP    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  B5 

lies?  for  all  have  often  forgotten  their  scruples, 
and  their  preferences,  and  given  their  support 
to  the  glorious  Gospel,  by  whomsoever  pro- 
claimed. "  Unawares,"  we  have  "  entertain- 
ed the  angel",  of  concord.— With  a  happy  in- 
consideration  we  have  dropped  the  badges  of 
distinction;  and  in  moments  of  excitement, 
conquered  by  the  spirit  of  our  religion,  have 
joined  hands  with  om^  brethren,  vtnthout  first 
asking  whether  or  not  they  "  foEow  with  us." 

The  perplexing  problem  which  s}iiods  might 
have  discussed  in  vain  during  a  session  of 
twenty  years,  has  been  resolved  by  the  spon- 
taneity of  our  hearts ;  and  it  has  been  deter- 
mined that  a  Christian,  while  he  decidedly 
prefers  certain  modes  of  religion,  and  delibe- 
rately believes  that  those  modes  possess  a  valid 
claim  to  universal  homage,  may  nevertheless, 
without  any  inconsistency,  promote  the  spread 
of  Christianity  abroad  by  the  agency  of  men 
who  hold  them  in  no  esteem.  Nay,  it  is  viv- 
tually  implied  in  the  practice  of  the  religious 
world  at  the  present  time,  that  to  refuse  such 
aid  on  urgent  occasions  would  be  grossly  in^ 
consistent  with  the  spirit  of  our  religion. 

What  is  it  then  that  actually  prevents  our 
acceding  to  the   proposed  plan  of  combina- 


66  NEW   MODEL 

tion  1  Not  our  respective  scruples,  for  these 
have  already  been  practically  set  at  nought ; 
and  We  have  all  confessed  the  lawfulness  of 
aiding  the  promulgation  of  our  common  faith 
under  an  imperfect  or  encumbered  form. 
Churchmen  have  supported  the  missions  of 
Dissenters ;  Dissenters  have  contributed  to 
those  of  Churchmen ;  Congregationalists  have 
helped  to  send  out  Wesleyan  preachers ;  Wes- 
leyan  eloquence  has  provoked  Calvinistic  au- 
diences to  greater  zeal ;  thepractisers  of  sprink- 
ling have  subscribed  towards  Serampore  trans- 
lations ;  and  Baptists  have  given  their  gold  to 
those  who  do  not  immerse  ! 

But  it  is  alleged  that,  although  a  Christian 
may  accidentally  support  measures  which  he 
does  not  thoroughly  approve ;  yet,  that  he  is 
bound  by  a  due  regard  to  his  convictions  to 
devote  the  bulk  of  his  contributions,  whether 
of  personal  service  or  pecuniary  aid,  to  the 
diffusion  of  the  specific  form  of  doctrine  and 
worship  which  he  believes  to  be  most  agreea- 
ble to  the  divine  will.  Let  this  supposed  obli- 
gation be  fully  admitted.  On  the  present  oc- 
casion we  are  not  compelled  to  sift  the  reasons 
which  seem  to  give  it  force ;  for  we  may  pass 
over  it  on  higher  ground.     This  supposed  du- 


OP    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  67 

ty  must  be  granted  to  be  conditional.    A  Chris- 
tian can  only  be  obliged  to  propagate  his  spe- 
cific opinions  abroad  when  he  actually  has  the 
means  of  doing  so  ;  but  if  he  possesses  no  such 
opportunity ;  if  no  missionary  association  ex- 
ists among  the  members  of  his  own  commun- 
ion ;  or  if  his  religious  opinions  are  peculiar  to 
himself;  and  if  he  can  neither  himself  go 
abroad  as  a  teacher,  nor  is  able  to  employ  a 
substitute,  the  abstract  obligation  is  plainly 
cancelled  by  the  impracticability  of  discharging 
it.     Nevertheless  a  Christian  so  circumstan- 
ced is  not  thereby  absolved  from  the  higher 
duty — or  we  should  say,  debarred  from  th^ 
privilege,  of  joining  with  others  to  diffuse  the 
blessings  of  the  Gospel  through  the  world ; 
and  if  he  cannot  do  it  as  he  would,  he  will 
still  do  it  as  he  can.     Thus  we  stand  relieved 
from  the  necessity  of  arguing  the  general  ques- 
tion. 

The  supposed  duty  of  promulgating  our  per- 
sonal opinions  is  even  to  a  still  greater  extent 
conditional ;  as  for  instance — If  the  measures 
of  a  particular  society  were  obviously  so  ill  di- 
rected at  home,  or  its  sphere  of  foreign  opera- 
tions so  unpropitiously  circumstanced,  as  that 
all  rational  hope  of  success  were  excluded ; 


68  NEW   MODEL 

while,  at  the  same  time,  some  other  society, 
by  superior  discretion,  by  greater  zeal,  and 
by  enjoying  in  a  larger  degree  the  blessing  of 
heaven,  were  seen  to  be  rapidly  advancing  on 
the  com-se  of  prosperous  exertion,  so  that  ev- 
ery shilling  contributed  to  its  funds  might  be 
calculated  to  possess  an  infinite  value,  then, 
and  in  such  a  case,  the  dictate  of  a  genuine 
zeal  for  our  common  faith,  and  of  a  sincere 
benevolence  towards  our  fellow  men,  would 
lead  a  Christian  to  divert  his  alms  from  the 
channel  of  unproductive  expenditure,  and  to 
direct  them  towards  the  field  of  copious  fruit- 
fulness.  He  would  do  so,  even  though  the 
opinions  propagated  by  the  one  society  were, 
to  a  tittle,  his  own,  while  the  forms  or  the  di- 
cipline  sent  out  by  the  other  contained  much 
that  he  thought  decidedly  reprehensible.  Who- 
ever would  not  thus  decide  in  the  circumstan- 
ces supposed,  while  he  "professes  to  believe 
that,  without  the  Gospel  the  people  perish, 
and  admits  that  its  saving  efficacy  inheres  in 
other  forms  of  Christianity  than  his  own,  has 
surely  never  conceived  a  thought  more  capa- 
cious than  might  paps  througli  a  needle's  eye  : 
liis  reptile  conceptions,  surely,  are  capable 
of  nothing  more  excursive  than  to  crawl  in 


OP    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS  69 

and  out  of  his  church,  through  a  crevice. — 
Surely  such  a  man  has  never  solemnly  medi- 
tated on  the  vast  futurity  that  stretches  before 
the  human  family  !  Surely  he  has  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  sad  ruin  in  which  human  nature 
is  lying — no  idea  of  the  hope  set  before  us  in 
the  Gospel !  Certainly  the  word — Eternity, 
has  never  dwelt  on  the  hearing  of  such  a  man. 
Nay,  he  must  be  destitute  of  common  benev- 
olence : — nay,  he  must  be  devoid  of  common 
sense  ;  for  he  holds  the  egregious  absurdity 
that  some  of  the  parts  of  Christianity  are  of 
more  importance  than  the  whole.  We  need 
not,  however,  arrest  the  course  of  our  argu- 
ment by  attempting  to  vanquish  the  obdurate 
bigotry  of  any  such  persons,  if  such  there  be, 
since  the  sense  of  the  great  body  of  Cliristians 
is  decidedly  opposed  to  a  conduct  and  temper 
of  this  kind. 

The  ground  is  then  clear  before  us  on  which 
to  establish  our  ultimate  proposition ;  for  if  a 
high  probability  of  success  in  propagating  what 
is  deemed  a  defective  form  of  Christianity  out- 
weighs or  supersedes  the  supposed  duty  of 
promulgating  what  we  think  a  more  perfect 
form  of  it — when  the  opportunity  of  doing  so 
is  removed ;  then  we  may  say — that  if  a  new 


70  NEW    MODEL 

constitution  of  missions  on  the  principle  of  com- 
bination and  of  the  division  of  labour  promises 
— as  unquestionably  it  does,  to  procure  much 
greater  successes  than  can  be  hoped  for  while 
the  present  sectarian  system-  is  adhered  to, 
then  are  all  Christians  bound  by  the  duty  they 
owe  to  their  Lord,  and  by  the  duty  of  chari- 
ty they  owe  to  their  deluded  brethren  of  all 
nations,  to  adopt  the  better  system,  even 
though,  in  doing  so,  they  must  severally  con- 
sent to  send  abroad  forms  of  government,  and 
modes  of  worship,  which  they  approve  much 
less  than  their  own. 

I  affirm  then  that  the  obstacles  which  at 
first  sight  seem  to  prevent  the  adoption  of  the 
plan  proposed  in  these  letters,  have  already 
been  virtually  nullified  by  the  practice  and 
better  feelings  of  Christians.  And  certainly 
the  feelings  inspired  by  preaching  the  Gospel 
among  the  heathen  are  found  to  place  party 
distinctions  in  a  point  of  view  extremely  dispar- 
aging to  their  importance.  The  uniform  tes- 
timony of  the  most  respectable  Missionaries 
is  to  this  effect : — "While  standing  among  the 
heathen,"  say  they,  "  and  while  surrounded 
by  the  appalling  spectacles  of  a  horrid  idola- 
try, and  while  proclaiming  the  pure  and  sa- 


OF    CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.  71 

ving  doctrine  of  the  cross  to  the  debauched 
and  fanatical  \ictims  of  daemon  worship,  the 
questions  which  divide  the  Christian  Church 
fade  utterly  from  our  view. — From  the  ground 
on  which  we  stand  we  can  no  longer  discern 
them  ;  or  they  seem  in  the  extremest  degree 
trivial."  Let  it  be  granted  that,  according 
to  the  rigidness  of  school-logic,  this  mode  of 
spealdng.  is  somewhat  erroneous.  Neverthe- 
less it  contains,  in  substance,  a  most  momen- 
tous truth — a  capital  principle,  which,  con- 
versant as  we  are  with  ecclesiastical  frivolities, 
few  of  us  are  qualified  to  appreciate  at  its  prop- 
er value.  But,  not  to  insist  upon  generali- 
ties, it  may  be  observed  that,  of  the  several 
causes  of  dissension  among  us,  some  belong 
so  entirely  to  England,  and  to  its  constitutions, 
that  they  vanish  in  the  viewless  v/inds  the  mo- 
ment we  leave  the  British  Channel ; — they 
can  no  more  be  transported  to  India,  or  to 
the  Islands  of  the  Southern  Ocean,  than  we 
can  carry  there  the  ices  of  Scotland,  or  the 
fogs  of  the  Thames.  Other  questions,  on 
which  we  divide,  are  superseded  by  the  inar- 
tificial state  of  the  nations  we  are  labouring  to 
convert,  and  among  whom  it  would  be  egre- 
giously  absurd,  as  well  as  culpable,  to  intro- 


72  NEW   MODEL 

duce  the  leaven  of  abstruse  logomachy. 
There  are  other  questions  which  the  discre- 
tion of  every  sound-minded  Missionary  will 
lead  him  to  keep  out  of  the  sight  of  those 
whose  respect  for  our  religion  he  would  not 
impair. 

No  process  of  attenuation  is  perhaps  more 
exquisite  than  that  by  which  the  filmy  slender- 
ncss  of  sectarianism  is  wire-drawn  to  the  dis- 
tance often  or  twelve  thousand  miles.  When 
we  come  among  a  people  savage  or  half  civil- 
ized, and  intellectually  rude,  by  whom  noth- 
ing but  the  very  elements  of  religion  can  pos- 
sibly be  apprehended,  and  who  must  enjoy 
the  benefits  of  instruction  during  many  years 
before  they  can  be  qualified  to  form  a  judg- 
ment on  questions  of  abstruse  or  perplexing 
controversy,  we  must,  of  necessity,  hold  all 
such  questions  in  abeyance  for  a  length  of 
time.  But  here  it  must  be  well  noted  that, 
though  it  is  impossible  to  put  our  new  converts 
in  possession  of  the  grounds  of  theological  ar- 
gument, nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  infect 
them  at  once  with  the  jjoison  of  religious  spleen; 
and  wliile  we  fail  hi  our  attempts  to  convey  to 
them  that  sort  of  intelligent  conviction  which,  . 
among  ourselves,  mollifies  the  a^iperities  of 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  73 

separation,  they  may  imbibe,  with  the  utmost 
readiness,  the  spirit  of  party.  We  may  in- 
deed propagate  sectarianism  among  Hindoos 
or  Hottentots  ;  but  it  can  only  be  in  the  un- 
mitigated form  of  a  blind  bigotry,  devoid  of 
reason  and  suavity. 

I  think  I  could  engage  to  bring  home  from 
India,  or  from  Africa,  a  bundle  of  sermons: 
and  expositions,  and  private  conversations, 
taken  verbatim  from  our  Missionaries  of  vari- 
ous denominations  ;  and  after  expunging,  per- 
haps, here  and  there  a  phrase,  offer  the  col- 
lection to  the  Christian  world,  and  challenge 
the  several  sects  to  claim  their  own  out  of  the 
mass.  Mistakes  much  more  improbable  have 
often  been  fallen  into  than  that,  for  example> 
of  the  Congregationalist,  who,  in  looking  over 
such  a  parcel,  should  lay  claim  to  the  discour- 
ses of  the  Church  Missionary ;  while  a  Church- 
man, perhaps,  would  challenge  the  sermon 
of  a  Dissenter ;  the  .Wesleyan  those  of  the 
Baptist ;  and  possibly  the  Baptist  might  lay 
his  hand  on  the  instructions  of  a  teacher  who 
sprinkles  rather  than  dip !  Thus  it  would  ap- 
pear that  the  very  opinions  which,  at  vast  cost, 
and  extreme  injury  to  the  great  cause,  we 
have  shipped  off  to  China,  or  the  Pacific,  are 
7 


74  NEW    MODEL 

SO  unsubstantial  or  evanescent,  that  we  cannot 
recognize  them  when  again  brought  back  to 
us.  For  what  valuable  consideration  is  it  then, 
that  we  are  dividing  our  efforts  till  they  become 
feeble  and  inefficient  1  For  what  are  we  put- 
ting contempt  upon  Christianity  in  the  sight 
of  the  profane  at  home,  and  of  heathens  a- 
broad  ]  For  what  are  we  stretching  our  diifer- 
ences  from  one  side  of  the  globe  to  the  other? 
For  what  are  we  putting  in  peril  the  conver- 
sion of  the  world  at  this  auspicious  moment, 
when  Heaven  has  loudly  caEed  us  to  the  work? 
We  are  submitting  to  all  this  damage,  and  in- 
curring all  this  hazard,  and  putting  all  this 
dishonour  upon  the  Gospel  for  the  perpetua- 
tion of  opinions  which,  in  fact,  we  find  it  hard 
to  preserve  from  evaporation  ere  they  have 
crossed  the  line. 


LETTER  III. 

"for  are  ye  not  carnal." 

I  have  affirmed,  my  dear  friend,  first,  that 
the  union  of  evangelical  Christians,  without 
distinction  of  party  in  the  Missionary  enter- 
prise, is  necessary  as  the  means  of  managing 
so  vast  a  business  efficiently ;  and  have  then 
endeavoured  to  shew  you  that  such  a  union 
is  not  at  all  impracticable ;  or  at  least  that  it 
is  not  forbidden  by  conscientious  scruples.  I 
now  proceed  to  adduce  reasons  of  another 
kind,  in  themselves  weighty  enough  to  secure 
the  compliance  of  the  Christian  world  with  the 
proposed  reform. 

In  the  first  place  then  the  merging  of  party 
distinctions  when  we  go  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to  the  heathen  is  absolutely  necessary  to  pre- 
serve Christianity  from  dishonour  in  their  eyes. 


76  NEW    MODEL 

and  to  prevent  the  origination  of  heresies  and 
divisions  among  our  converts. 

The  mischiefs  that  must,  in  the  end,  spring 
from  the  diffusion  of  a  sectarized  Christianity 
have  not,  as  yet,  had  time  or  space  to  be  de- 
veloped ;  but  they  will  appear  whenever  the 
infant  church  abroad  shall  come  to  lengthen 
its  cords,  and  strengthen  its  stakes.  Even  in 
those  islands  or  insulated  regions  where  the 
work  of  evangelization  rests  exclusively  in  the 
hands  of  one  and  the  same  party,  it  must 
happen — unless  some  disingenuousness  is 
practised,  that  the  divided  state  of  the  church 
at  home  will  at  length  become  known  ;  and 
it  will  be  extremely  difficult  to  prevent  the  fact 
from  presenting  itself  in  a  startling  point  of 
view  to  simple-minded  converts.  But  in  In- 
dia, and  in  other  countries  where  the  agents 
of  our  several  societies  come  in  contact,  the 
sectarism  of  English  Christians  must  presently 
obtrude  itself  upon  the  notice  of  the  convert- 
ed Hindoo  :  nor  can  the  most  ingenious  glo- 
zings  hinder  it  from  making  a  deep  and  unfa- 
vourable impression  on  his  mind. — He  is 
taught  that  the  religion  he  has  imbibed  is  de- 
rived from  a  single,  intelligible  book — a  book 
given  by  inspiration  of  God  ;   and  he  reads  in 


OF    CHTISTIAN    MISSIONS.  77 

it  that  it  should  be  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  the  Christian  religion  that  the  ti^ue  disciples 
of  Christ "  love  one  another,"  and  are  at  peace 
among  themselves.  How  is  it  then  that  those 
who  mutually  acknowledge  each  other  as  the 
true  disciples  of  Christ,  and  who  exchange  the 
tokens  of  affection  as  often  as  they  meet,  are 
yet  actually  at  variance  ; — and  so  much  at  va- 
riance that  they  can  by  no  means  unite  in  the 
same  measures  for  spreading  their  religion ; 
but  on  the  contrary  are  actually  compelled  to 
have  recourse  to  the  cumbrous,  and  costly, 
and  ruinous  method  of  despatching  separate 
embassies,  so  vast  a  distance,  to  idolatrous 
nations ;  as  if  there  were  scarcely  any  thing 
held  in  common  by  the  different  sects  of  Chris- 
tians ?  Now  there  are  two  ways  in  which  the 
perplexities  and  inquiries  that  must  arise  a- 
mong  intelligent  converts  may  be  met : — the 
one  belonging  to  the  present  system  ;  and  the 
other  to  the  system  advocated  in  these  let- 
ters. 

On  the  present  system  ;  not  only  must  the 
fact  of  our  divisions  be  acknowledged,  but  the 
serious  nature  of  the  questions  on  which  we 
are  at  variance  must  be  confessed ;  otherwise 
no  sufficient  reason  can  be  given  for  the  party 


78  NEW    MODEL 

measures  we  pursue  :  and  it  must  be  granted, 
moreover,  that,  although  pious  and  learned 
men  have,  age  after  age,  been  employed  in 
discussing  the  controverted  points,  there  is  no 
more  probability  now  than  ever,  of  their  being 
determined.  Must  not  such  a  confession 
greatly  shake  the  confidence  of  thoughtful, 
but  imperfectly  informed  men  ?  can  it  fail  to 
abate  their  respect,  both  for  ourselves  and  for 
our  religion  ?  and  is  it  not  full-fraught  with 
the  infection,  as  well  of  doubt,  as  of  discord  ? 
And  yet  no  statement  essentially  different  from 
this  can  be  made ;  or  if  ingenious  conceal- 
ments were  attempted,  they  could  be  of  no 
lasting  avail ;  for  the  minds  of  men  are  always 
much  more  forcibly  affected  by  obvious  facts, 
than  by  intricate  apologies  ;  and  so  long  as  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  Christians  of  Eng- 
land are  divided  into  parties,  and  that  these 
parties  are  unable  to  unite,  even  when  actua- 
ted by  the  strong  and  pure  motives  which  im- 
pel them  to  send  Missionaries  to  the  other  side 
of  the  globe,  it  will  be  utterly  in  vain  to  talk 
of  the  cordiality  which  exists  among  us. 

But  now  let  it  be  imagined  that  the  propo- 
sed union  of  Christians  in  the  Missionary  work 


OF    CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS  79 

were  effected,  and  that  no  party  name — no 
party  difference  were  evet  sent  out  of  England. 
In  this  case  we  might,  without  danger,  with- 
out shame,  and  even  with  honour  and  advan- 
tage, explain  to  our  converts  the  true  state 
of  things  at  home  :'  we  might,  for  example, 
address  them  in  such  terms  as  the  following. 
— "  It  is  indeed  true  that  the  Christians  of 
England  differ  in  their  manner  of  interpreting 
certain  passages  of  Scripture,  relating  to  mat- 
ters of  discipline  and  worship.  But  that  they 
do  not  deem  these  differences  to  be  of  very 
serious  consequence,  is  proved  by  the  fact 
which  you  see  before  your  eyes — that  when 
the  conversion  of  their  brethren  in  distant  lands 
is  in  question,  they  lay  aside  every  variance, 
and  cordially  join  in  their  endeavours  to  spread 
the  Gospel.  At  the  same  time  the  differen- 
ces which  exist  among  us  serve  to  give  a  great- 
er value  to  our  agreement  on  matters  of  doc- 
trine ;  for  it  proves  that  we  exercise  perfect 
freedom  of  judgment,  and  are  exempt  from 
restraint  in  the  expression  of  opinion :  our  con- 
sent therefore  on  the  great  articles  of  religion 
furnishes  a  comdncing  proof  of  the  perspicuity 
of  the  Scriptures  on  points  of  importance ; 
since  all  who  devoutly  read  the  Bible  come 


80  NEW    MODEL 

to  the  same  conclusions  in  regard  to  them. 
Moreover  the  differences  which  distinguish  us, 
though  they  are  to  be  regretted,  still  serve  to 
illustrate  the  power  of  the  Gospel  to  produce 
concord  among  its  adherents ;  for  if  it  had 
not  a  strong  influence  of  this  kind,  the  several 
parties,  instead  of  concurring,  as  you  see,  in 
the  same  measures,  would  act  independently 
of  each  other,  and  more  as  rivals  than  as  al- 
lies. Having  given  you  this  candid  statement, 
we  may  confidently  advise  you  to  entertain  no 
anxiety  relative  to  those  questionable  points 
which  we  do  not  at  present  bring  under  your 
notice :  the  time  will  come  when  you  will 
have  made  those  acquisitions  in  biblical  and 
historical  learning  which  are  requisite  to  the 
forming  of  a  competent  judgment  on  subjects 
of  this  class." 

I  ask  which  of  these  two  explanations  would 
make  the  more  favourable  impression  upon 
the  susceptible,  half-informed,  and  perhaps 
suspicious  minds  of  new  converts  from  Gen- 
tilism  ?  Who  can  hesitate  in  preferring  the 
latter  to  the  former  1  It  is  not  only  free  from 
occasion  of  offence,  but  it  even  sheds  a  glory 
upon  Christianity,  and  eminently  illustrates  its 
power  and  excellence,  and  vouches  for  the 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  81 

candour  and  simplicity  of  the  motive  which 
impels  us  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  every  land. 

On  the  contrary,  the  former  statement, 
sadly  confirmed  by  the  visible  fact  of  schism, 
transported  from  England  to  India,  could  not 
fail  to  engender  the  most  disheartening  surmi- 
ses ;  or,,  if  it  did  not  convey  the  poison  of  sus- 
picion, would  ine\atably  impart  the  infection 
of  religious  animosity.  This  probable  event 
demands  the  most  serious  attention  of  all  who 
support  Missionary  Societies.  A  singular 
thoughtlessness  has  hitherto  been  indulged  in 
regard  to  it.  We  have  gone  out,  carrying 
the  torch  of  divine  truth  in  one  hand  ;  forget- 
ful that  we  bore  in  the  other  the  smouldering 
brand  of  theological  strife.  And  here,  my 
dear  friend,  I  must  request  you  to  correct  me 
if  I  err  in  the  anticipations  which  I  entertain. 
I  read  the  book  of  human  nature,  and  the 
book  of  church  history,  and  without  daring  to 
presume  that  human  nature  will  show  itself 
altogether  a  different  thing  in  India  from  what 
it  is  in  Europe,  I  calculate  probabilities,  with 
a  strong  fear  of  not  being  found  a  false  proph- 
et of  dismal  things. 

Should  the  nations  of  India  receive  from  us 
the  religion  of  the  Scriptures ;  but  receive   it 


82  NEW    MODEL 

under  the  system  we  are  now  pursuing,  it  is 
much  more  than  we  have  any  right  to  hope 
for,  that  the  very  worst  evils  will  not  in  time 
spring  up  from  the  seeds  of  theological  discord 
which  we  are  so  unadvisedly  scattering  in  the 
East. 

It  is  very  true  that  in  modern  times  religious 
controversy  has  been  stripped  almost  entirely 
of  its  hateful  qualities.  But  we  may  be  assur- 
ed that  the  mischief  is  latent,  not  extinct,  and 
shall  surely  reappear  when  circumstances  fa- 
vour its  development.  You  tell  me  that  dis- 
cord and  heresy  may  spring  up  spontaneous- 
ly ;  for  they  did  so  in  the  churches  planted 
by  the  Apostles  :  yes ;  but  shall  we  therefore 
wantonly  carry  them  in  our  hands  ?  If  offen- 
ces must  needs  come  ;  at  least  let  them  not 
be  traced  to  us.  Let  us  not  necessitate  a  sad 
result,  which  otherwise,  might  be  deemed  on- 
ly probable. 

Really  one  might  imagine  that  the  confident 
anticipation  so  generally  entertained  at  pre- 
sent, of  an  approaching  era  of  universal  love, 
had  operated  to  deprive  Christians  of  all  cau- 
tion in  the  measures  they  are  pursuing  abroad. 
We  so  firmly  believe  that  the  golden  age  is  a- 
bout  to  commence,  that  we  fear  not  to  scat- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  ©3 

ter  the  elements  of  feud,  trusting  that  before 
they  can  work  any  harm,  the  period  of  Mil- 
lennial peace  will  have  commenced.     Let  us 
mix  tares  with  the  wheat ;  for  a   summer  is 
coming  which  shall  allow  the  growth  of  no 
weeds  !  But  on  what  solid  groimd  is  it  that  we 
proceed  in  assuming  that  those  dire  mischiefs 
which  so  often  have  desolated  the  Western 
Church,  have  spent  all  their  force  on  this  side 
the  globe,  and  shall  never  be  brought  forth 
by  the  fervent  suns  of  the  East  ?  Do  we  know 
infallibly  that  fierce  animosities,  and  cruel  in- 
tolerance, shall  never  again  burst  from  the 
doors  of  discordant  synods — that  theological 
difference  shall  never  again  issue  in  theologi- 
cal hatred  ?  Who  dares  deny  the  possibility  of 
a  sad  repetition  of  the  horrors  which  hereto- 
fore, in  our  own  isla,nd,  have  affronted  the 
sun  1  How  amazing  then — ^how  culpable,  is 
our  temerity  in  daring  to  carry  out  to  a  new 
soil  the  germs  of  those  very  disagreements 
which,  though  now  mollified,  yet  bear  fresh 
upon  them  the  scars  of  deadly  strife !  Our 
fathers,  of  two  or  three  generations  back, 
pursued  each  other  to  the  stake,  to  the  gib- 
bet, to  the  rack,  on  account  of  these  very  di- 
versities of  opinion,  or  dissimilarities  of  wor- 


84  NEW    MODEL 

ship  which  we  (for  conscience  sake  truly)  are 
sending'  off  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  !  Perilous 
infatuation !  may  heaven  in  its  compassion 
defeat  our  folly,  and  provide  for  the  people  of 
the  East  a  way  of  escape  from  the  deadly 
consequences  of  such  inconsideration  ! 

Either  then  we  are  quite  thoughtless  of  the 
future ;  or  we  are  trusting  to  some  miraculous 
interposition  to  prevent  the  natural  consequen- 
ces of  the  course  we  pursue  ;  or  we  go  on  as 
we  have  begun  because  we  deem  it  impossible 
to  do  better.  I  deny  this  impossibility  ; — or 
else  affirm  that  impossibilities  should  be  sur- 
mounted, rather  than  that  the  heathen  should 
receive  from  us  a  sectarized  Christianity. 
Miserable  delusion — or  worse,  hypocrisy,  of 
the  man  who  pleads  reasons  of  conscience 
for  proceedings  so  pestilent !  But  I  should  re- 
turn to  the  tone  of  moderation  ; — the  infatua- 
ting power  of  inveterate  errors  is  incalculable ; 
otherwise  we  should  not  so  generally,  and  so 
long  have  been  blind  to  the  enormous  impro- 
priety of  propagating  our  English  schisms  in 
new  regions.  I  am  willins:  to  rest  the  neces- 
sity  of  effecting  a  new  model  of  missions  upon 
this  single  ground. 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  85 

But  again  ; — the  plan  of  a  Catholic  union 
lor  foreign  missions  is  powerfully  recommen- 
ded by  its  tendency  to  produce  a  favourable 
effect  upon  the  minds  of  persons  at  home, 
hitherto  hostile,  or  indifferent,  to  Christiani- 
ty. 

There  can  be  no  consistency  in  professing 
to  be  actuated  by  a  burning  zeal  for  the  con- 
version of  Hindoos  and  Caffres,  while  we  are 
indifferent  to  the  infidelity  and  impiety  which 
meet  the  eye  around  our  homes,  and  often, 
alas  !  within  them.  A  Christian  must  not 
be  reckless  in  regard  to  one  immortal,  and 
say  he  is  compassionately  solicitous  for  the 
salvation  of  another.  His  zeal  must  know 
no  distinction  of  place  or  nation  ;  or  if  it  knows 
any,  it  must  give  its  preference  to  those  who 
stand  within  the  nearest  relationships.  But 
even  if  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  were 
the  darling  object  of  our  exclusive  endeavours, 
nothing  could  more  directly  tend  to  promote 
our  design  than  to  win,  by  all  means,  the  co- 
operation of  those  thousands  of  our  country- 
men who,  at  present,  deny  the  aid  they  might 
furnish,  less  from  deliberate  hostiiit}^,  than 
because  "they  know  not  what  they  do ;"  and 
partly,  perhaps,  because  the  missionary  en- 
8 


86  NEW   MODEL 

terprise  has  not  yet  presented  itself  under  so 
fair  an  aspect  as  it  might. 

Religious  persons  who  mix  exclusively  in 
society  of  their  own  sort,  and  who  have  no 
intimate  and  undisguised  intercourse  with  in- 
telligent, but  irreligious  men,  can  form  no  cor- 
rect estimate  of  the  magnitude  of  the  injury 
inflicted  upon  tens,  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
by  the  inconsistencies  and  discords  of  the 
Christian  world.  It  is  true  that  the  plea  for 
irreligion,  which  is  ordinarily  derived  from 
this  source,  is  too  palpably  sophistical  to  have 
any  influence  over  a  sound  understanding — - 
if  it  were  not  backed  by  the  prejudices  of  a 
heart  at  enmity  with  God.  Nevertheless  this 
plea,  in  point  of  fact,  proves  itself  to  be  fatal- 
ly valid,  and  in  the  actual  state  of  religious 
profession,  it  is  always  a  too  easy  task  for  the 
caviller  to  pick  up  facts  which  give  it  a  show 
of  plausibilit}^  When  the  proper  evidences 
of  Christianity  have  been  urged  upon  the  ob* 
jector  with  irresistible  force,  he  makes  good 
his  retreat,  even  with  an  air  of  triumph,  from 
what  he  feels  to  be  the  untenable  ground  of 
infidelity,  and  takes  refuge,  as  if  in  perfect 
security,  in  some  such  evasion  as  this :  "  Well, 
when  Christians  have  agreed  among  them- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  87 

selves  what  Christianity  is,  we  will  give  it  a 
hearing."  If  it  be  replied  that  all  those  whose 
spirit  and  conduct  prove  them  to  be  the  sin- 
cere disciples  of  Christ,  are  actually  agreed 
in  whatever  is  of  most  importance  ;  then  it  is 
vaimtingly  rejoined — "  But  if  they  are  indeed 
agreed  in  things  important,  why,  on  account 
of  things  unimportant,  do  they  stand,  from 
age  to  age,  divided  into  parties,  and  so  put 
contempt  upon  the  primary  article  of  Chris- 
tian morals?"  Thus  it  is,  that,  in  spite  of  ev- 
ery explanation  which  can  be  given,  the  no- 
torious fact  of  the  divided  state  of  the  Chris- 
tian body,  snatches  the  weapon  of  comiction 
from  our  hands,  as  often  as  we  attempt  to 
vanquish  gainsayers.  But  this,  alas !  is  a 
disadvantage  and  an  opprobrium  under  wHich 
we  must  be  content  to  labour,  perhaps  for  a 
century  to  come. — God  grant  a  shorter  date 
to  the  error  of  his  people  !  To  return :  though 
we  cannot  at  once  remedy  the  wide-spreading 
evils  of  schism,  the  measure  proposed  in  these 
letters,  and  which,  for  its  own  sake,  is  desir- 
able, as  well  as  practicable,  would  go  very 
far  towards  removing  all  occasion  of  offence. 
A  public  and  formal  act  on  the  part  of  the 
several  evangelical  sects,  whereby  they  should 


88  NEW    MODEL 

consent  to  hold  all  their  differences  in  abey- 
ance, for  the  express  purpose  of  facilitating 
the  progress  of  the  Gospel  abroad,  would  bring 
more  honour  upon  our  religion  than  has  ac- 
crued to  it  in  any  way  since  the  times  of  the 
martyrs.  So  unquestionable  a  zeal  for  Chris- 
tianity, apart  from  sectai'ianism,  and  even  at 
the  cost  of  particular  predilections,  could  not 
fail  to  awaken  a  great  degree  of  attention : — 
it  would  confound  malignant  cavillers; — con- 
ciliate the  prejudiced,  and  happily  dissipate 
the  distressing  perplexities  of  thousands  who 
now  are  the  pitiable  victims  of  the  scandals 
that  deform  the  profession  of  religion.  Are 
not  these  reasons  weighty  enough  to  obtain  a 
hearing  ere  we  resolve  anew  to  persist  in  our 
disgraceful  discords  ]  Should  not  the  ruin  of 
souls  at  home  make  us  pause  in  our  path 
when  we  are  setting  out  to  convert  the  heath- 
en] 

Men  are  influenced  in  the  judgments  they 
form,  immensely  more  by  inferences  drawn 
from  notorious  facts,  than  by  even  the  very 
best  arguments  that  are  shut  up  in  books. — 
The  argument  for  the  truth  of  Christianity  is 
perfect :  no  chain  of  reasoning  can  be  more 
complete  ;  yet  it  Axils  to  command  universal 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  89 

assent ;  for  where  it  rests,  it  attracts  the  at- 
tention only  of  those  who  scarcely  need  to  be 
convinced  :  others  leave  it  on  the  shelf,  while 
they  pursue  their  course  of  pleasure  or  ambi- 
tion. We  want  some  signal  display  of  the 
power  and  excellence  of  Christian  motives ; 
and  with  this  view,  nothing,  hardly,  could 
have  a  better  effect  than  such  a  relinquish- 
ment of  party  distinctions,  and  for  such  a  pur- 
pose, as  is  here  recommended.  Perhaps  even 
a  combination  of  Christians,  still  preserving 
the  old  lines  of  separation  at  home,  while  they 
pass  over  them  for  promoting  the  Gospel  a- 
broad,  would  have  more  force  as  an  instance 
of  the  power  of  Christianity,  than  as  if  an 
entire  amalgamation  of  parties  had  first  taken 
place. 

The  co-operation  of  sects  in  the  Bible  So- 
ciety has  certainly  done  great  honour  to  the 
spirit  of  the  times.  Nevertheless,  as  an  in- 
stance of  Christian  unanimity,  the  example  is 
essentially  defective;  for  in  joining  together 
to  circulate  the  Scriptures,  without  note  or 
comment,  we  have  abandoned  nothing  but 
those  prejudices  and  aversions,  to  persist  in 
which,  when  they  might  be  fairly  relinquished, 
would  be  utterly  disgraceful  to  men  bearing 
8* 


90  NEW    MODEL 

the  Christian  name.  Mean-while,  not  a  sin- 
gle step  has  been  taken  on  the  course  of  real 
concession  or  mutual  forbearance. — In  the 
eye  of  the  world — though  the  feelhig  he  differ- 
ent, it  is  as  if  a  conference  of  hostile  persona- 
ges were  held  on  neutral  ground,  and  under 
the  protection  of  a  truce,  for  the  transaction 
of  some  necessary  business,  common  to  the 
belligerants : — weapons  are  laid  aside,  and 
compliments  are  exchanged,  and  expressions 
of  personal  friendship  are  given  and  taken,  but 
peace  is  not  in  the  assembly. 

In  the  eye  of  the  world  also,  and  in  the  view 
of  those  who  do  not,  or  who  will  not  use  dis- 
crimination, the  simultaneous,  but  unconnec- 
ted efforts  now  maldng  by  the  several  sects  to 
spread  the  Gospel  abroad,  do  not  show  a  very 
fair  face  ;  for  this  extraordinary  zeal,  in  the 
form  it  assumes,  may  as  easily  be  attributed 
to  the  spirit  of  rivalry,  as  to  the  spirit  of  ex- 
pansive beneficence.  But  were  the  proposed 
Missionary  Union  to  take  place,  an  unan- 
swerable refutation  would  be  given  to  this  false 
and  injurious  supj^osition  : — it  must  be  a  zeal 
for  the  very  substance  of  religion,  not  for  the 
form  of  it,  which  prompts  such  a  sacrifice ; 
and  it  would  be  manifest  that  we  are  so  deeply 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  91 

convinced  of  the  excellence  and  necessity  of 
the  faith  we  profess,  that  we  would  infinitely 
rather  publish  it  under  a  form  we  do  not  whol- 
ly approve,  than  not  at  all.  It  is  this  very 
proof  of  a  heart-felt  conviction  on  the  part 
of  the  religious,  that  is  needed  to  awaken  the 
attention  of  the  irreligious. 

Once  again  :  the  proposed  coalescence  of 
parties  for  the  promotion  of  Missions  is  in  the 
highest  degree  desirable,  inasmuch  as  its  ten- 
dency would  be  to  bring  about  the  union  of 
Christians  at  home. 

There  are  those  who  think  they  discern 
pretty  clearly  the  source  of  that  erroneous  as- 
sumption which  seems  to  justify  or  to  palliate 
Church  division.  But  subjects  of  this  class 
have  been  too  often  discussed,  to  permit  of 
their  being  brought  forward  anew  with  any 
great  hope  of  a  favourable  result.  Events, 
not  books,  must  bring  us  back  into  the  path 
of  concord.  Meanwhile,  it  is  in  our  power 
to  adopt  a  preliminary  measure,  in  itself,  as 
we  have  seen,  highly  desirable,  which  would 
set  Church  union  in  the  most  recommendato- 
ry light,  and  almost  irresistibly  conduct  us  to- 
wards it.  While  acting  together  under  the 
proposed  new  plan  of  combination,  we  should 


93  NEW    MODEL 

have  constantly  before  our  eyes  a  demonstra- 
tion of  the  truth  that  Christians,  though  hold- 
ing, as  individuals,  a  diversity  of  opinion  on 
many  points,  may  very  safely  and  very  advan- 
tageously join  haixls  in  a  good  work ;  and 
that,  without  harm  or  inconvenience,  all  may, 
for  the  sake  of  a  good  work,  lay  aside  many 
things  to  which  they  have  been  long  accus- 
tomed, and  are  fondly  attached,  and  may  bear 
with  many  things  which  they  think  reprehen- 
sible, or  susceptible  of  amendment.  But  if 
they  may  thus  co-operate,  why  not  commu- 
nicate 1 — if  they  may  rally  around  the  standard 
of  philanthropy,  why  may  they  not  ^  meet  be- 
fore the  throne  of  mercy  ]  Why  need  those 
worship  apart,  who  can  do  good  together  1 
Are  the  delights  and  benefits  which  belong  to 
the  communion  of  saints  unworthy  of  the  same 
sort  of  forbearance,  and  concession,  which 
have  been  yielded  as  the  purchase  of  the  ben- 
efits of  mutual  aid  1  It  would  he  felt,  if  not 
logically  proved,  that  Christianity  gains  infi- 
nitely more  by  the  union  of  its  friends — even 
though  in  uniting  they  make  some  sacrifice  of 
opinion,  than  it  can  possibly  gain  by  their  dis- 
cords ;  even  though  by  means  of  dissension,. 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS  93 

certain  opinions  and  practices  (deemed  impor- 
tant) are  valiantly  maintained. 

The  inevitable  result  of  combined  labours 
would  be  to  triturate  walls  of  partition.  "  We 
are  met,"  would  Christians  say,  "  to  promote 
a  cause  which  is  dear  to  us  all  alike  :  and  if 
in  any  thing  we  differ,  we  agree  vastly  more 
than  we  differ."  The  habitual  utterance  of 
sentiments  such  as  this,  v/ould,  ere  long,  give 
an  irresistible  preponderance  to  all  that  is  great 
and  substantial,  when  weighed  against  what 
is  subordinate  or  trivial :  and  though  certain 
controversies  might  not  perhaps  be  brought  to 
an  argumentative  issue,  they  would  be  over- 
passed, and  left  behind  ;  and  even  if  they  con- 
tinued to  create  diversity  of  opinion,  they  would 
cease  to  be  thought  of  as  grounds  of  separa- 
tion. 

I  will  venture  to  advance  a  step  further, 
and  to  affirm  it  as  highly  probable  that,  when 
once  things  come  into  this  track,  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  solution  of  many  existing  difficul- 
ties will  speedily  be  obtained.  My  dear  friend, 
I  request  your  especial  attention  to  this  con- 
jecture. Let  me  state  the  case  distinctly. — 
It  is  indeed  a  most  perplexing  spectacle  to  see 
a  succession  of  honest  and  well-informed  men, 


94  NEW    MODEL 

age  after  age,  concentrating  all  the  force  of 
their  minds  on  the  very  same  evidence,  and 
nevertheless  coming  to  opposite  conclusions. 
This  circumstance  would  not  be  so  strange  if 
both  parties  confessed  the  question  about  which 
they  disagree  to  be  of  a  doubtful  kind,  and 
acknowledged,  on  both  sides,  that  the  evi- 
dence is  somewhat  ambiguous  and  obscure. 
But  alas  !  both  loudly  proclaim  that  the  rea- 
sons of  their  opinion  are  perspicuous  as  the 
light  of  noon.  Here,  then,  is  our  riddle  ;  for 
it  is  equally  amazing  that  wise  men  should 
draw  opposite  conclusions  where  there  is  real- 
ly no  obscurity ;  or  that  they  should  deny  ob- 
scurity where  it  actually  exists.  One  is  ready 
to  ask — why  is  it  that  the  promised  Spirit  of 
truth  does  not  lead  these  good  men  in  the  same 
path  ?  Do  they  not  severally  and  sincerely 
ask  for  the  heavenly  guidance  1  Yes,  it  is  true, 
that  they  ask — ^but  they  ask  amiss,  inasmuch 
as  they  have  not  placed  themselves  iu  a  posi- 
tion proper  for  receiving  the  boon.  Let  him 
who  prays  to  be  informed  of  the  mind  of  Christ 
on  certain  matters  of  discipline  or  worship, 
first  yield  obedience  to  the  unquestionable,  the 
unambiguous  law  of  Christ,  which  demands 
that  the  bond  of  union  among   all  who  sin- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  95 

cerely  love  Him  should,  by  no  means,  be 
broken  on  account  of  matters  of  "  doubtful 
disputation."  Shall  the  Lord  interpose  to  de- 
cide a  controversy  which  is  allowed  to  gene- 
rate  di\isions  in  flagrant  violation  of  his  explicit 
and  intelligible  rule  of  Church  communion  ? 
Who  can  suppose  it  1  Those  who  love  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity  must  first  join 
heart  and  hand,  and  cast  away,  with  abhor- 
rence, all  those  names  of  men  that  are  now 
called  upon  them.  There  must  first  be  effec- 
ted, not  merely  a  restoration  of  cordial  affec- 
tion ;  but  a  public,  a  formal,  and  a  visible  re- 
conciliation;  and  then  shall  that  promised 
light  be  given  which  is  needed  to  dispel  the 
darkness  that  seems  to  rest  upon  some  sub- 
ordinate articles  of  our  faith.  The  way  of 
the  Lord  is  ordinarily  first  to  obtain  submis- 
sion to  his  unquestioned  will,  and  then  to  grant 
those  advancements  in  knowledge  which  are 
desired,  I  am  not  surely  presumptuous  in 
saying  that  this  suggestion  deserves  the  serious 
consideration  of  those  whom  it  may  concern  ; 
and  especially  of  those  who,  by  office  and 
personal  character,  sustain  extensive  respon- 
sibilities. 

I  would  even  hazard  the  prediction  that  ere 


96  NEW    MODEL 


^ 


five  years  have  elasped,  after  a  public  union 
of  all  sincere  Christians  has  been  effected, 
scarcel}^  a  doubt  will  remain  on  any  theologi- 
cal or  practical  question  that  can  be  deemed 
at  all  important.  It  is,  I  think,  a  most  delu- 
sive expectation,  entertained  by  some  persons, 
that  the  peace  of  the  Church  v^^ill  be  aifected 
by  the  argumentative  determination  of  existing 
controversies.  Is  it  not  much  more  probable 
that  a  revival  of  fer\^ent  piety  will,  if  the 
phrase  may  be  used,  fuse  the  Church  into  a 
state  of  union ;  and  that  then  the  spirit  of 
discrimination  and  of  sound  judgment  in 
doubtful  matters  shall  be  conferred  upon  it  ? 

Allow  me,  for  a  moment,  to  pursue  a  plea- 
sing and  curious  supposition.  Let  it  then  be 
imagined  that  our  efforts  to  diffuse  the  Gospel 
have  been  crowned  with  very  extensive  suc- 
cess, and  that  large  and  flourishing  churches 
have  been  formed  in  countries  at  present 
overshadov/ed  by  Paganism;  and  let  it  be 
supposed  that  the  true  doctrine  of  Christian 
union  is  understood  and  maintained  in  these 
churches ;  that  separation  is  unknown,  and 
that  the  blessed  fruits  of  peace  spring  up  on 
every  side.  What  nuist,  in  such  a  case, 
happen,  but  that  we  sliould  begin  at  home  to 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  97 

covet  the  same  felicity  ?  Is  it  possible  that 
we  should  remain  contentedly  pent  up,  as 
heretofore,  within  our  little  enclosures,  while 
we  contemplated  the  joyous  harmony  of  the 
churches  we  had  planted  1  Or  if  we  remain 
insensible  to  the  edifying'  example,  would  not 
the  spirit  of  missionary  zeal  revert  to  its 
source,  and  those  to  whom  we  had  conveyed 
the  Gospel  send  it  back  to  us  in  its  primitive 
beauty  ?  The  warm-hea.rted  and  unsophisti- 
cated Christians  of  christianized  India,  or 
Persia,  or  Africa,  would  visit  us,  and,  travel- 
ling from  county  to  county  of  sectarian 
England,  call  together  the  disunited  congre- 
gations of  each  town  and  city,  affectionately 
upbraiding  them  with  their  needless  and  guilty 
schisms,  and  joining  the  hands  of  all,  as  the 
mediators  of  charity,  "beseech  us  by  the 
Lord  to  be  all  of  one  mind,"  and  not  merely 
to  love  one  another  in  word^  or  in  heart,  but 
to  afford  the  natural  demonstration  of  love — 
undisturbed  communion.  Thus  it  would  hap- 
pen that,  as  if  to  check  our  glorying  as  the 
keepers  and  dispensers  of  divine  truth,  we 
should  be  compelled  to  submit  to  the  humilia- 
tion of  receiving  it  back  better  than  we  had 
sent  it  fortli. 

9 


98  NEW   MODEL 


I 


Finally,  merging  of  party  differences,  ex- 
pressly for  the  purpose  of  removing  whatever 
might  hinder  the  spread  of  Christianity, 
would  have  a  powerful  influence  in  dissipating 
and  putting  to  shame  that  fatal  spirit  of  tri- 
fling in  religion  which,  in  every  age,  and  in 
our  own  not  less,  has  so  easily  beset  the 
Church. 

How  quickly,  how  readily  do  we  substitute 
any  thing  that  wears  the  dress  of  godliness  in 
the  place  of  its  infinite  realities  !  One  would 
wish  that,  on  the  walls  of  every  edifice  conse- 
crated to  Christian  worship,  there  were  inscri- 
bed the  apostolic  injunction — "  Be  not  chil- 
dren in  understanding  ;  but  in  understanding 
be  men."  When  shall  we  learn  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  arithmetic  of  the  sanctuary  % 
When  be  able  to  calculate  the  immense  spa- 
ces of  the  skies,  and  be  disenchanted  of  the 
delusion  which  leads  us  to  think  a  volute  on  a 
pillar  of  the  church — because  it  is  near,  lar- 
ger than  a  world,  because  it  is  distant  1  But 
how  should  we  conceive  of  the  things  of  eter- 
nity, how  even  duly  estimate  the  great  matters 
of  common  morality,  how  be  rightly  affected 
by  the  miseries  of  the  millions  of  the  family 
of  man ; — how  can  we  thus  feel,  think,  and 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  99 

act,  like  men,  while  we  are  stickling  upon 
phrases,  and  if  not  now  sparring  about  mat- 
ters of  form,  doing  much  worse — persisting 
in  our  several  peculiarities,  after  we  have 
become  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  error  of 
those  who,  in  an  age  of  strife,  divided  the 
Church  on  account  of  theml  We  sleep, 
and  are  most  idly  dreaming  while  the  fire 
smoulders  that  shall  consume  all  things  !  Too 
many  of  the  precious  moments  given  us  for 
effecting  the  escape  of  ourselves  and  of  our 
brethi^en  have  been  lost :  the  time  is  come  to 
awake. 

While  Christians,  within  their  several  com- 
partments, like  groups  of  children  in  the  four 
corners  of  the  play-ground,  are  amusing 
themselves  with  the  superior  excellence,  and 
the  immaculate  purity,  and  divine  authority  of 
their  modes  of  government  and  forms  of  wor- 
ship, and  are  wondering  at  the  infatuation  of 
those  who  do  not  see  things,  so  obvious,  in  the 
same  light  as  they  do,  it  is  impossible  that  the 
splendours  of  heaven  should  attract  their  re- 
gards :  it  is  impossible  but  that  the  overwhelm- 
ing facts,  brought  within  the  sphere  of  our 
vision  in  the  Scriptures,  should  fail  of  making 
a  full  impression  on  their  hearts.     The  mind 


100  NEW    MODEL 

of  man  is  not  so  capacious,  is  not  so  compre- 
hensive, is  not  so  nicely  poised  upon  its  cen- 
tre of  movement,  as  that  it  may  embrace,  at 
once,  the  great  and  the  small,  the  finite  and 
the  infinite ;  or,  at  the  same  time  be  busied  in 
trifles,  and  occupied  v^^ith  affairs  of  moment. 
By  very  necessity  of  nature  the  soul  of  the 
bigot  belongs  to  the  class  of  reptiles ;  and  this 
assertion  holds  good  of  the  entire  genus ;  for 
whether  the  creature  be  as  venomous  as  the 
adder,  or  as  harmless  as  the  mole,  still  he  can 
do  nothing  better  than  crawl.  Or  let  it  be 
granted,  that  one  man  in  a  million  may  actu- 
ally be  found  whose  mind,  at  once  gigantic 
and  exquisitely  finished,  can  grasp  the  minu- 
test object,  without  losing  hold  of  the  im- 
mense. Nevertheless,  unquestionably,  the 
generality  of  men  have  no  such  nice  faculty ; 
they  must  needs  make  their  choice,  and  em- 
ploy themselves  either  upon  primary,  or  upon 
secondary  matters  : — their  stars  forbid  that 
they  should  give  heed  to  both.  It  may  be  af- 
firmed with  the  confidence  due  to  a  mathe- 
matical axiom,  that  every  controversy  agita- 
ted in  the  Church  on  points  of  inferior  mo- 
ment, makes  a  reduction — often  an  immense 
reduction,  from  the  regard  paid  to  the  great 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  101 

objects  of  faith.  Away  then  with  the  trifler, 
who  pleads  conscience  and  conviction  for 
petty  scruples  !  he  is  the  destroyer  of  souls  ! 
A  proposition,  the  converse  of  the  one  just 
advanced,  might  with  some  limitations,  be 
affirmed,  namely — that  whenever  a  trivial  con- 
troversy is  quashed,  the  attention  it  has  ab- 
sorbed is,  as  it  were,  redeemed,  and  set  free 
to  be  fixed  on  higher  objects. 

Yet  to  quash  controversy  by  power,  can, 
under  no  imaginable  circumstances,  produce 
good ;  nor  is  any  thing  gained  when  diversi- 
ties of  opinion  fade  away  beneath  the  torpors 
of  religious  indifference.  But  a  deliberate 
relinquishment  of  discords,  or  of  the  forms  of 
discord,  without  a  relinquishment  of  private 
opinion,  and  for  the  very  sake  of  objects  in- 
finitely important,  could  not  fail  to  bring  with 
it  a  highly  enhanced  feeling  towards  those 
vast  realities,  for  the  sake  of  which,  the  con- 
cession was  made.  The  interests  of  eternity 
weigh  with  every  man,  very  much  in  propor* 
tion  to  the  amount  of  the  sacrifice  which  he 
makes  to  secure  them.  And  if  a  sacrifice  of 
worldly  interests  is  found  commonly  to  pro- 
duce an  increase  of  serious  feeling;  so,  not 
less,  would  a  surrender  of  those  prejudices 
9* 


102  NEW   MODEL 


^ 


and  preferences  which,  in  the  present  instance 
are  all  that  need  be  laid  on  the  altar  of  char- 
ity, probably  be  attended  by  an  elevation,  and 
a  deepening,  and  an  expansion  of  our  reli- 
gious convictions. 

If  once  we  had  brought  ourselves  to  con- 
sent to  aid  in  sending  forth  the  Gospel  among 
the  heathen  under  a  garb  less  to  our  taste  than 
the  one  to  which  we  are  accustomed  ;  and  if, 
in  order  that  we  might  by  all  means  save  our 
perishing  fellow-men,  we  had  submitted  to 
shock  our  educational  predilections,  we  should 
from  that  moment,  apprehend  in  a  more  vivid 
manner  than  heretofore,  the  substance  of  the 
enterprize  in  which  we  are  engaged.  We 
should  love  the  Gospel  better ;  we  should  love 
our  heathen  brethren  more  fervently,  and  feel 
more  keenly  the  sadness  of  their  spiritual 
condition.  It  would  be  as  when  a  man  who 
has  been  accustomed  to  peruse  his  Bible  only 
in  his  vernacular  tongue,  acquires  another, 
acd  another  language,  and  reads  the  great 
message  of  God,  expressed  in  a  new,  and 
again  in  a  new  manner :  at  first  he  is  incom- 
moded and  hurt  by  the  loss  of  accustomed 
phrases,  and  by  the  strangeness  of  the  new 
ones.     But  after  a  while,  his  mhid,  with  vost 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  103 

advantage,  disengages  itself  from  the  swath 
of  words,  and,  with  a  bui'st  of  new  joy,  recog- 
nizes the  same  gi^eat  and  precious  realities  of 
the  Gospel  beneath  the  diversity  of  the  me- 
dium. By  forcing  ourselves  to  embrace 
Christianity  under  another  garb,  we  should 
fix  our  view  upon  its  essential  excellence;  and 
having  turned  away  our  sight  from  things  ex- 
ternal, should  look  with  a  more  penetrating 
glance  into  the  vast  futurity :  we  should  "  see 
things  that  are  afar  off,"  and  the  glaring 
shows  of  the  present  time  would  fade  more 
from  our  sight,  and  divert  us  less. 

We  have  none  of  us,  m  fact,  nearly  so 
vivid  a  sympathy  for  woes  spiritual,  as  for  the 
sufferings  of  the  body.  How  common  a 
thing  is  it,  when  some  sudden  demand  is  made 
to  administer  relief  to  physical  wretchedness, 
that  we  all  rush  forward  in  benevolent  reck- 
lessness, trampling  down  partitions  and  punc- 
tilious forms ;  and  many  a  kind-hearted  sec- 
tarist,  rigid  as  the  vraitry  stream,  when  you 
meet  him  on  the  by-path  of  his  religious  pe- 
culiarities, melts  down  into  charity  on  the  cry 
of  the  miserable,  and  is  even  seen  to  take  a 
pride  in  displaying  his  readiness  to  sin  against 
scruples,  while  he  lends  his  hand  and  purse 


104  NEW   MODEL 

to  the  children  of  want. — Indeed,  my  dear 
friend,  I  think  so  highly  of  the  genuine  hu- 
manity of  the  great  mass  of  religionists,  as  to 
believe  that  (to  take  one  example  among 
many)  if  the  abolition  of  slavery  might  be 
purchased  at  the  price  of  their  severally  con- 
senting to  worship  God  henceforward  in 
modes  they  approved  less  than  their  own, 
they  would,  almost  to  a  man,  violate  their 
ecclesiastical  consciences.  Oh  that  we  could 
always,  and  on  every  occasion,  be  as  incon- 
sistent as  our  better  feelings  sometimes  make 
us! 

If  we  could  but,  as  we  ought,  see  and  feel 
the  spiritual,  as  we  see  the  natural,  not  a  mo- 
ment would  be  lost  by  the  Christian  world  in 
throwing  aside — even  with  hasty  fear  and  ab- 
horrence, those  embarrassments  which,  at 
present,  more  than  the  oppositions  of  secular 
power,  more  than  the  slenderness  of  pecunia- 
ry resources,  more  than  the  malice  and  craft 
of  the  infernal  spirit,  hinder  the  spread  of  the 
Gospel  through  the  world.  If  things  spirit- 
ual, in  the  force  of  reality,  rested  on  our 
hearts,  we  should  in  a  moment  start  out  from 
our  niches  of  marble  formality,  and  press  up 
to  the  altar  of  philanthropy,  each  bringing 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  105 

the  bathed  bundle  of  his  prejudices  in  his 
hand,  to  be  taken  up  no  more. 

In  the  instance  that  I  have  just  above  sup- 
posed, is  it  not  certain,  that  the  man  who 
should  refuse  to  give  up  his  scruples  at  the 
call  of  humanity,  would,  in  doing  so,  undergo 
an  induration  of  his  sympathies  1  The  act 
of  stoical  Pharisaism  in  "passing  by  on  the 
other  side,"  lest,  while  gi\ing  aid  to  a  stran- 
ger in  distress,  he  should  contract  some  cere- 
monial pollution,  would  bring  a  callousness  on 
every  kindly  feeling — if  indeed  he  possessed 
any  such  feeling  to  be  so  damaged. 

The  case  before  us  is  of  a  parallel  kind : — 
and  if  a  proposition  were  actually  agitated 
for  giving  effect  to  the  plan  recommended  in 
these  Letters,  and  if  the  proposition  obtained 
powerful  support,  and  won  a  majority  of  voi- 
ces, it  may  be  affirmed  that  the  minority  who 
should  resolve  to  adhere  to  rigid  principles, 
how  honest .  soever  their  dissent  might  be, 
would,  in  dissenting,  sustain  an  irreparable 
injury  in  their  Christian  sensibilities,  and  be- 
come far  less  qualified  than  before,  to  take 
part-  in  the  labours  of  foreign  evangelization. 

I  venture,  on  the  other  hand,  to  anticipate, 
that  the  actual  adoption  of  the  plan  of  Cath- 


106  NEW    MODEL 

olic  union  for  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel, 
would  bring  with  it  a  most  auspicious  revival 
of  spiritual  religion.  We  should  feel,  with 
much  greater  force  than  ever,  the  influence 
of  high  motives ;  we  should  be  thrown  direct- 
ly upon  all  that  is  vast,  elevated,  and  pure  in 
the  objects  of  our  faith.  Having  "  put  away 
childish  things,"  and  renounced  "beggarly 
elements,"  and  imposed  silence  upon  "  vain 
janglings,"  and  scorned  scholastic  refinements, 
and  loathed  lifeless  forms,  we  should  feel  that 
we  must  also  renounce  all  those  inferior  and 
corrupting  motives  of  ostentation  or  personal 
ambition,  which  are  so  apt  to  mingle  them- 
selves with  our  best  impulses.  We  should 
sicken  at  praise  ;  tremble  to  receive  or  to  offer 
adulation;  spurn  levity,  and  shudder  at  the 
very  thought  of  being  swayed  in  works  of 
charity  by  motives  of  worldly  interest. 

It  now  only  remains,  my  dear  friend,  that  I 
should  explain  v/ith  more  precision  than  I 
have  yet  done,  the  arrangements  that  it  would 
be  necessary  to  make,  in  carrying  the  New 
Model  of  Missions  into  effect. 


LETTER  IV. 

"l  AM  MADE  ALL  THINGS  TO  ALL  MEN,  THAT  1  MIGHT  BY 
ALL  MEAN3  SAVE  SOME:  AND  THIS  I  DO  FOB  THE  GOS" 
PEl'3  8AKE." 

My  dear  Friend, 

It  is  not  possible,  nor  would  it  be  desirable 
if  it  were  possible,  to  strip  from  Christiianity 
every  thing  but  its  essential  principles;  nor 
could  w'e  send  among  the  heathen  a  bare  an- 
nouncement of  salvation,  and  nothing  else. 
Of  necessity,  the  glad  tidings  of  peace  through 
Jesus  Christ,  must  carry  with  them,  go  where 
they  may,  a  mode  of  worship,  and  a  form  of 
social  combination;  even  the  simplest  services 
have  their  customs  and  orders,  and  the  sim- 
plest government  their  officers  and  subordina- 
tion. These  must  be  carried  out  with  us, 
when  we  go  forth  to  preach  the  GospeF;  for 
it  were  an  infantile  folly,  or  a  sheer  affectation 
to  propose  that  our  missionaries  should  stand 
amidst    barbarous,    or   half-civilized    tribes, 


108  NEW    MODEL 

whose  crude  notions  and  ignorance  must  al- 
ways lead  them  astray,  where  they  are  not 
led  by  the  hand,  and  to  say  to  them,  "  We 
have  made  known  to  you  the  great  subject  of 
our  mission — the  life  to  come,  and  the  terms 
of  pardon ;  now  we  must  leave  you,  without 
instruction  or  bias,  to  adopt  such  modes  of 
worship  and  forms  of  government  as  shall 
seem  to  you  best ; — in  these  nice  matters  we 
dare  not  guide  you."  Nothing  could  be  more 
preposterous  or  absurd  than  to  hold  this  pru- 
dish language  to  our  converts  from  heathen- 
ism. 

But  if  we  may  neither  send  Christianity 
without  a  form,  nor  leave  our  new .  converts 
to  frame  one  for  themselves,  shall  we  convoke 
deputies  from  the  several  communities,  and 
contrive  a  new  model  of  worship,  and  frame 
a  new  platform  of  government,  such  as  may 
win  the  approval  of  all  parties?  Who  is 
there  so  ignorant  of  history  and  of  the  world 
as  to  anticipate  a  happy  issue  from  such  a 
measure]  The  actual  result  would  almost 
certainly  be  an  interminable  and  acrimonious 
controversy,  the  din  of  which  would  awaken 
the  formidable  ghosts  of  obsolete  polemics. 
Scarcely  five  men  of  oui'  times  have  wisdom 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  109 

or  grace  enough  to  qualify  them  for  such  a 
business  ; — even  were  they  left  to  themselves 
in  carrying  it  forward ;  and  certainly  not  if 
embarrassed  by  the  folly  and  the  heat  of  fifty 
or  a  hundred  assessors.  In  that  case  they 
would  inevitably  withdraw  themselves  from  the 
scene  of  fmitless  jangling  ere  an  article  was 
finally  settled. 

There  remains  then  no  hope  of  effecting  a 
union  of  Missionary  exertions,  unless  we 
adopt  the  principle  of  waving  altogether  the 
discussion  of  old  controverted  points,  and  of 
submitting,  for  the  attainment  of  an  object  so 
glorious,  to  some  one  existing  model  of  church 
government  and  worship. 

In  selecting  this  one  model,  it  is  of  course 
necessary  to  dismiss  entirely  the  idea  of  found- 
ing our  preference  of  that  which  we  choose 
upon  its  alleged,  or  supposed,  intrinsic  superi- 
ority, or  purity,  or  scriptural  authority,  or  pe- 
culiar adaptation  to  the  specific  purpose  for 
which  it  is  to  be  used.  No  pretension  of  this 
sort  could  possibly  win  universal  suffrage,  or 
be  made  the  basis  of  harmony.  Another, 
and  a  more  commodious  rule  of  choice  must 
be  had  recourse  to ;  and  there  are  always 
ready  at  hand  loiver  reasons  of  preference 
10 


110  NEW   MODEL 

which  happily  save  the  compromise  of  princi- 
ple, and  the  violation  of  personal  feelings,  and 
prevent  the  rending  up  of  prejudice.     For 
example — when  a  question  of  precedence  is  to 
be  determined,  it  is  not  asked — ^who  is  the 
worthiest  man,  or  the  wisest,  in  the  company; 
but  the  place  of  honour  is  readily  conceded 
to  him,  be  he  personally  wise  or  not,  who  al- 
ready pQssesses  some  accidental  pre-eminence 
to  which  others  may  pay  deference  without 
seeming  to  confess  personal  inferiority.     In 
such  cases  it  is  perfectly  understood  by  all, 
that  the  concession  is  made  in  the  spirit  of 
courtesy,  and  for  the  sake  of  convenience, 
irrespectively  of  what  might  be  the  decision  of 
absolute  right  and  reason.     If  ever  reluctance 
is  shown  to  submit  to  any  such  conventional 
arrangement  in  matters  of  honour,  resistance 
arises,  not  among  the  noble,  or  the  well-bred, 
or  those  who  might  best  support  a  claim  on 
the  ground  of  personl  merit;  but  among 
those  whose  arrogance  rests  on  the  broad 
bottom  of  their  ignorance  and  ineptitude. 

The  common  sense  of  mankind  universally 
acknowledges  this  mode  of  election  to  the 
place  of  honour  among  competing  powers  or 
persons,  to  be  a  good  owe.    In  the  instance 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  Ill 

before  us,  no  perplexity  could  arise  in  bring- 
ing it  to  bear. — ^Ve  should  not  say  to  the 
several  Dissenting  communities, — "  Concede 
to  the  Established  Church  because  its  forms 
and  discipline  are  more  Scriptural,  or  more 
editing  than  your  own ;"  but  we  should  sa)^, 
"  Yield,  because  some  such  concession  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  large  success-  of  the  Mis- 
sionary cause  ;  and  yield  to  the  Established 
Church,  because  it  stands  among  you  alrea- 
dy possessed,  by  common  courtesy  at  least, 
of  a  visible  precedency  :  and  yield  to  it,  moreo- 
ver, because  principle  will  be  much  less  com- 
promised in  so  doing  on  the  ground  of  courte- 
sy, than  as  if  any  one  of  the  several  forms  of 
dissent,  which  possess  no  such  ostensible 
claim,  were  hoisted  up  above  the  others." 

There  might  even  be  adduced  another  rea<^ 
son  of  the  proposed  concession,  which 
Churchmen,  without  discredit,  might  urge, 
and  of  which  Dissenters  might,  with  honour 
to  themselves,  aclmowledge  the  force. — Is  it 
not,  by  usage  universal,  the  custom  for  lighter 
carriages  to  swerve  from  their  line  of  road,  in 
favour  of  such  as  could  not,  without  difficulty 
or  peril,  pull  out  of  their  rut  1 — Do  the  Dis- 
senters pride  themselves  on  their  freedom 


112  NEW    MODEL 

from  the  restraints,  entanglements,  and  bur- 
den, of  statutes  ecclesiastical  ? — do  they  glory 
in  spurning  human  enactments'? — do  they 
abhor  to  link  religion  with  secular  interests  ? — 
do  they  rejoice  to  admit  no  forms  which,  as 
individuals,  they  have  no  power  to  revise  or 
refuse  ?— then  let  them,  on  this  most  worthy 
occasion,  and  on  the  loud  call  of  pagan  mise- 
ry, use  their  boasted  liberty  for  the  best  imag- 
inable purpose.  Now  let  it  be  their  glory 
and  their  honourable  boast  that,  when  the 
advancement  of  our  common  Christianity 
was  in  question,  they  could  and  they  did  lay 
then*  several  preferences  on  the  altar  of  char- 
ity. Is  there  a  triumph  to  be  won  on  the  field 
of  theological  strife  that  can  equal  in  true 
brilliancy  the  one  that  would  be  obtained  by 
such  a  concession,  prompted  by  such  a  mo- 
tivej]  Scarcely  ought  the  glory  of  martyrdom 
to  rank  above  it : — an  offering  this — gTateful 
in  the  court  of  heaven  beyond  the  fumes  of 
very  much  incense ! 

An  abandonment  of  the  forms  to  which 
they  have  pledged  themselves  to  adhere,  could 
not  be  submitted  to  by  the  clergy  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church,  or  even  by  its  lay  members 
without  incurring  difficulties  of  a  kind  that  do 


1 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  113 

not  at  all  lie  in  the  way  of  any  class  of  Dis- 
senters who  should  make  similar  sacrifices. 
And  on  this  special  gTound  the  preference 
proposed  might  fairly  be  asked  for  on  the  one 
side,  and  might  properly  be  submitted  to  on 
the  other. 

Nevertheless  the  ministers  and  members  of 
the  National  Church  need  not,  on  this  great 
and  happy  occasion,  be  altogether  debarred 
from  sharing  in  the  honours  and  pleasures  of 
Christian  concession.  In  truth  there  is 
ground  on  which  they  might  lead  the  way, 
and,  as  becomes  them  well,  set  the  example 
of  forbearance,  and  invite  and  facilitate  the 
compliances  they  ask  for.  I  mean  that  they 
should  admit  into  the  for- is  of  worship  sent 
abroad  those  few  modifications  or  retrench- 
ments which  some  of  the  firmest  and  most 
enlightened  friends  of  the  Church  have  sighed 
to  see  effected.  It  would  not  be  the  objec- 
tions or  the  scruples  of  Dissenters  that  need 
be  assumed  as  the  guide  in  making  these 
small  alterations ;  but  rather  those  recorded 
hints  and  acknowledgments  that,  from  time  to 
time,  have  been  advanced  by  wise  and  pious 
Churchmen. 

To  refuse  this  single  step  towards  concilia- 
10* 


114  NEW    MODEL 

tion  would  be  to  lose  a  signal  occasion  for 
displaying  the  wisdom  and  the  meekness  of 
the  apostolic  spirit :  it  would  be  to  bring  for- 
ward anew  the  obsolete,  and  very  dangerous 
pretension  to  infallibility  in  regard  to  every 
iota  of  our  ecclesiastical  constitutions  ;  and  it 
would  be  to  make  a  flagrant  profession  of  the 
very  principle  of  schism,  namely — That  not 
even  a  particle — an  indifferent  particle — a 
worthless  particle  of  the  modes  we  prefer, 
shall  ever  be  surrendered  to  the  wishes  or  the 
weaknesses  of  our  brethren,  even  though  the 
surrender  would  prevent  division,  or  heal  it ! 

On  such  a  supposed  occasion  it  would  de- 
serve the  serious  consideration  of  the  true 
friends  of  the  Established  Church,  whether, 
if  a  disposition  to  coalesce  among  themselves, 
and  even  to  give  place  in  some  degree  to  the 
Church,  actually  existed  among  the  numerous 
bodies  of  orthodox  Christians  who  stand  on 
the  side  of  dissent,  it  would  not  be  a  most 
unwise  and  perilous  pertinacity  to  let  the  occa- 
sion pass  by  and  to  decline  absolutely  all  ami- 
cable parley ;  or  to  suffer  an  extensive  com- 
bination to  be  formed  without  the  pale  of  the 
Church,  which  might  perhaps  have  been  so 
managed,  as  to  have  left  her  neither  rival  nor 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  115 

adversary ;  or  none  that  could  be  formidable. 
A  resoluteness  of  this  kind  has  not  seldom, 
both  in  public  and  private  affairs,  been  the 
precursor  of  irretrievable  ruin. 

We  assume  then  the  supposition  that,  with 
some  few  and  small  exceptions,  the  forms  and 
ritual  of  the  English  Church  are  fixed  upon 
as  those  which,  with  least  inconvenience, 
might  be  sent  abroad  by  a  united  Missionary 
Society.  It  remains  then  to  ask  the  several 
classes  of  Dissenters  how  much  of  com- 
promise or  concession  would  actually  be  re- 
quired of  them  in  giving  their  support  to  such 
a  plan. 

On  looking  to  the  "  Fundamental  Princi- 
ple" of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  it 
would  seem  to  a  simple  reader  that  it  recog- 
nizes, to  the  fullest  extent,  the  very  doctrine 
that  I  have  pleaded  for  in  these  pages.  It 
seems,  I  say,  to  make  profession  in  its  corpo- 
rate capacity  of  the  most  absolute  neutrality 
on  all  those  lesser  points  which  divide  sincere 
Christians.  But  lest  we  should  be  accused 
of  drawing  too  hastily  an  inference  favourable 
to  our  object,  let  the  terms  of  this  fundamen- 
tal law  be  deliberately  examined.     It  is  de- 


116  NEW    MODEL 

clared  that,  "  As  the  union  of  Christians  of 
various  denominations,  in  carrying  on  this 
great  work,  is  a  most  desirable  object,  so,  to 
prevent,  if  possible,  any  cause  of  future  dis- 
sension, it  is  declared  to  be  a  fundamental 
principle  of  the  Missionary  Society,  that  its 
design  is  not  to  send  Presbyterianism,  Inde- 
pendency, Episcopacy,  or  any  other  form  of 
Church  order  and  government,  about  which 
there  might  be  difference  of  opinion  among 
serious  persons ;  but  the  glorious  Gospel  of 
the  blessed  God  to  the  heathen ;  and  that  it 
shall  be  left,  as  it  ought  to  be  left,  to  the  minds 
of  the  persons  whom  God  may  call  into  the 
fellowship  of  His  Son  from  among  them,  to 
assume  for  themselves  such  form  of  Church 
government  a&  to  them  should  appear  most 
agreeable  to  the  word  of  God." 

Now  in  interpreting  these  terms,  the  nature 
of  the  case,  and  the  actual  practice  of  the 
Society,  alike  forbid  the  supposition  that  it 
proposes  to  propagate  among  the  heathen 
nothing  but  a  naked  abstraction  of  Christian 
truth;  or  that  it  holds  itself  bound  to  abstain 
from  all  acts  of  influence  or  guidance  on 
matters  of  Church  government,  discipline, 
and  worship.     The  final  clause  of  the  "  Fun- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  117 

damental  Principle"  must  not  be  understood 
in  this  absolute  sense ;  for  as  such  a  preten- 
sion would  be  in  itself  absurd  and  insincere, 
it  were  unchai'itable  to  impute  it  to  the  framers 
of  the  article. 

In  point  of  fact,  as  every  one  well  knows, 
the  Missionaries  sent  abroad  by  this  Society 
are  drawn  chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  from  the 
congregations  that  adopt  the  Independent 
modes  of  government  and  worship;  and 
these  Missionaries — come  whence  they  may 
are  trained  for  their  work  under  clergymen 
of  that  denomination.  With  their  prepara- 
tory studies  they,  of  course,  imbibe  the  prin- 
ciples and  learn  the  practices  of  congregation- 
al dissent ;  and  evsn  if,  in  going  to  their  posts 
of  labour,  they  are  not  authoritatively  enjoin- 
ed^ to  promulgate  and  establish  the  same 
modes  and  principles,  it  may  be  fairly  presu- 
med that,  by  far  the  larger  number  of  them, 
when  called  upon  to  organize  Christian  soci- 
eties, in  heathen  lands,  actually  conform  their 
proceedings,  as  nearly  as  circumstances  will 
admit,  to  the  home  model. 

It  is  not  then  true,  either  that  the  London 
Missionary  Society  sends  abroad  no  form  of 
Christianity,  or  that  it  sends  indiscriminately 


118  NEW    MODEL  ^^ 

and  at  random,  this  form  and  that.  The 
practice  of  the  society  must  be  deemed  the 
best  interpreter  of  its  professed  principle ;  and 
this  principle  we  are  compelled  to  understand 
as  meaning  simply — that  forms  and  modes 
are,  in  the  esteem  of  the  society,  things  of 
very  inferior  importance ;  and  that  if  it  can 
but  diffuse  the  blessings  of  the  Gospel,  it  cares 
not  at  all,  or  cares  little,  whether  the  Christi- 
anity it  Propagates  assume  the  garb  of  Pres- 
byterianism,  of  Independency,  or  of  Episco- 
pacy. 

If  we  would  attach  a  precise  sense  to  the 
terms  of  the  "Fundamental  Principle,"  I 
really  see  not  any  other  than  the  one  above 
named,  which,  with  the  practice  of  the  society 
before  our  eyes,  we  can  assign  to  them.  Has 
not  the  society  always  invited  favour  and  aid 
from  serious  persons  of  all  denominations,  on 
the  broad  and  no  doubt  sincere  profession, 
that  its  object  is  much  larger  than  sectarianism 
of  any  sort  ?  Has  it  not,  in  order  to  win  uni- 
versal concurrence,  formally  and  solemnly 
renounced  the  exclusive  and  sinister  designs 
of  party  1  Has  it  not  virtually  given  to  the 
world  a  pledge  that  nothing  should  be  done 
vmder  its  auspices  which  might  fairly  shock 
the  peculiar  opinions  of  any  who  profess  the 


OF    CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.  119 

same  great  doctrine  of  salvation  ?  Or,  let  us 
advance  a  step  neaer  to  our  specific  object : — 
The  London  Missionary  Society  has  al- 
ways, and  with  marked  respect,  and  even 
solicitude,  invited  aid  from  the  clergy  and  lay 
members  of  the  Established  Church ;  and  in 
so  doing,  has  tacitly  acknowleged  that  there 
exists  no  such  difference  of  opinion  or  prac- 
tice between  itself  and  them,  as  must  imply  a 
forfeiture  of  consistency  on  their  part  in  be- 
stowmg  upon  it  their  good  wishes,  their  pray- 
ers, then-  eloquence,  and  their  money.  In 
other  words,  the  London  Missionary  Society, 
as  a  body,  seeks  and  desires  to  accomplish 
nothing  among  the  heathen  which  a  consis- 
tent Churchman  may  not  approve  of  and 
promote. 

This  is  assuredly  a  truly  catholic  profession, 
and  it  were  extremely  uncandid  to  insinuate 
that  there  lurks  under  it  any  sinister  purpose 
of  sectarianism ;  or  that  it  is  not  founded 
upon  a  perfect  mutuality  of  feeling ;  or  that 
there  exists  any  reluctance  to  follow  the 
"Fundamental  Principle"  wherever  it  may 
lead.  We  are,  I  say,  forbidden  to  suppose 
that  the  society  would,  for  a  moment,  hesitate 
to  throw  the  whole  amount  of  its  means  into 


120  NEW   MODEL 

the  chest  of  the  Church  of  England — if  once 
convinced  that,  in  so  doing,  it  would  more 
effectually  than  in  any  other  mode,  promote 
the  one  and  only  object  it  has  in  view — the 
spread  of  the  Gospel  abroad. 

From  the  corporate  profession  of  the  soci- 
ety we  may  fairly  turn  to  the  individual  prac- 
tice of  multitudes  of  its  members,  who,  by 
often  directing  the  overflowings  of  their  liber- 
ality into  the  coffers  of  societies  managed 
exclusively  by  Churchmen,  and  by  hailing 
with  unrestricted  pleasure  the  successes  of 
such  societies,  declare  in  the  most  unequivocal 
manner,  that  they  know  of  no  scruples  of 
conscience  whatever  which  should  prevent 
their  aiding  to  promote  the  diffusion  of  the 
doctrine,  and  the  discipline,  and  the  ritual,  of 
the  Established  Church.  We  have  then 
reached  our  inference,  and  reached  it  without 
any  casuistry  or  refinement  of  reasoning; 
and  it  is  this — namely.  That  a  plan  of  Mis- 
sionary combination,  giving  preference  to  the 
forms  of  the  Established  Church,  would  per- 
fectly accord  with  the  "  Fundamental  Princi- 
ple" of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  as 
well  as  with  the  individual  practice  of  its 
members. 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  121 

The  indigent  shade  of  the  founder  of  Me- 
thodism might  be  expected  to  come  forth  from 
his  repose,  were  it  even  surmised  that  the 
Wesleyans  would  stand  aloof  from  the  propo- 
sed plan  of  union,  on  the  plea  that  they 
could  not  support  the  usages  of  the  Church 
of  England.  It  were  a  calumny  upon  that 
respectable  body  to  anticipate  an  objection  of 
this  kind  from  them.  No  difference  of  opin- 
ion, affecting  conscience,  holds  the  Wesleyans 
in  separation  from  the  Church ;  and  their 
actual  disjunction  must  always  be  defended 
on  the  general  ground  of  expediency,  or  of 
temporary  necessity.  Whenever  it  shall  ap- 
pear that  the  great  ends  of  Christian  teach- 
ing among  the  lower  classes,  no  longer  de- 
mand the  separate  assemblage  of  the  Wesley- 
ans, then  theu^  separation  will  seem  barely 
justifiable. 

If  then  other  bodies  of  Christians  who 
might  plead  some  specific  differences  of  opin- 
ion were  impelled,  by  their  zeal  for  the  diffu- 
sion of  Christianity,  to  make  concessions,  it 
cannot  be  imagined  that  the  Wesleyan  Meth- 
odists, alone,  would  stand  stiffly  upon  the 
ground  of  sectarianism  ;  or  that  any  paltry 
considerations  of  party,  or  of  personal  ambi- 
11 


122  NEW    MODEL 

tioii,  would  be  allowed  to  prevent  their  falling 
into  a  system  of  comprehension. 

The  forms  of  the  Moravian  community  are 
essentially  in  harmony  with  the  modes  and 
principles  of  the  English  Establishment: — 
the  one  form  of  religion  is  but  a  spiritualized 
image  of  the  other,  adapted  to  the  tastes  and 
feelings  of  what  must  always  be  a  very  small 
class  of  persons.  I  can  discern  no  obstacle 
standing  in  the  way  of  this  estimable  body  of 
Christions,  if  they  were  invited  to  co-operate 
in  measures  directed  by  Churchmen.  Or  if 
for  a  moment,  they  hesitated  to  obey  the  call 
of  charity — an  event  which  I  do  not  believe 
would  happen,  they  would  doubtless  presently 
yield  to  the  earnest  solicitation^  of  their  breth- 
ren of  all  other  denominations,  who,  well 
informed  of  the  fervour  and  purity  of  the 
Moravian  Missionary  spirit,  would  not  spare 
the  most  pressing  entreaties  for  obtaining  their 
compliance. 

You  perceive,  my  dear  friend,  that  I  have 
reserved  my  grand  difficulty  to  the  last ;  and 
I  hear  you,  in  the  triumphant  tone  of  an  oppo- 
nent who  believes  he  has  an  insurmountable 


OF    CHTISTIAN    MISSIONS.  1,23 

objection  on  his  tongue,  ask — "But  is  it  pos- 
sible to  devise  any  scheme  of  comprehension 
which  shall  include  those  able  promoters  of  the 
Missionary  cause — the  Baptists'?"  "How," 
you  ask,  "  shall  this  body  of  our  brethren, 
without  compromise  of  principle,  or  direct 
violation  of  conscience,  be  brought  within  the 
pale  of,  even  the  most  ingeniously  devised 
system  of  catholic  combination  1"  You  grant 
that  they  may  continue  to  labour  in  the  same 
great  work ;  but  affirm  that  it  must  always 
be  in  a  corner  of  the  vineyard  by  themselves ; 
or  at  least,  until  the  enigma  is  solved  which  at 
present  so  peremptorily  divides  them  from  the 
mass  of  Christians. 

Rather  than  that  this  difficulty,  which  I 
confess  to  be  of  a  formidable  Idnd,  should  be 
allowed  to  prevent  the  proposed  union  of 
Christians  in  the  Missionary  work,  it  would 
be  advisable  to  leave  this  one  impregnable 
fortress  in  our  rear,  and  to  advance  on  the 
course  of  evangelical  conquest,  after  bestow- 
ing our  best  wishes  upon  the  solitary  exertions 
of  our  Baptist  brethren.  But  may  not  some- 
thing better  be  hoped  for '?  In  the  cause  of 
unanimity  really  desperate  in  this  quarter '?  I 
think  not.     One  might,   for  instance,   urge 


124  NEW   MODEL 

upon  our  Baptist  brethren  the  general  argu- 
ment, above  advanced,  and  appeal  to  them  on 
the  ground  of  those  practical  concessions 
which  the  infallible  instinct  of  Christian  feel- 
ing— a  far  better  guide  often  than  the  logic 
of  polemics,  has  again  and  again  prompted 
them  to  make.  Has  never  a  Baptist  deemed 
it  consistent  with  his  peculiar  tenet  to  contrib- 
ute a  guinea — a  speech — a  prayer,  in  aid  of 
the  promulgation  of  Christianity  by  those 
who  have  defrauded  it  (as  he  believes)  of  one 
of  its  sacraments  ?  I  subpoena  to  appear  in 
open  court  before  the  Christian  Church,  the 
most  strenuous  defender  of  immersion,  and 
the  most  determined  opponent  of  paedobap- 
tism  that  the  Baptist  body  can  send  forth,  and 
demand  of  him  to  say  whether,  in  framing 
his  daily  petitians  for  the  advancement  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ,  he  is  wont,  either  verbally 
or  mentally,  to  limit  his  request  to  the  small 
circle  of  Baptist  exertions'?  I  ask  him, 
whether  he  religiously  shuns  every  convoca- 
tion of  Christians  assembled  to  promote  the 
designs  of  paedobaptist  Missionary  Societies? 
I  challenge  him  to  affirm  that  he  has  never 
dropped  his  gold  into  a  paedobaptist  cofTer.  I 
dare  him  to  say  that  he  has  never  thanked 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  125 

God  for  the  success  of  paedobaptist  preaching ! 
You  and  I,  my  dear  friend,  know  many  of  the 
Baptists  too  well,  and  thinly  far  too  highly  of 
them,  to  allow  us  even  to  give  a  hearing  to 
any  one  who,  to  the  disgrace  of  his  party, 
should  step  forwards,  and  reply  to  these  inter- 
rogatories in  the  affirmative.  We  rather  as- 
sume it  as  certain  that  all  intelligent  and  well 
informed  men  of  tliis  denomination  hold  it  to 
be  both  lav/ful  and  praiseworthy  to  promote, 
to  the  utmost  of  their  power,  the  diffusion  of 
the  Gospel,  even  when  it  is  disadvantaged,  as 
they  think,  by  a  very  material  departure  from 
apostolic  practice.  They  might  therefore 
give  their  aid  to  a  Catholic  Mission  by  an  ex- 
tension of  the  principle  which  often  leads 
them  to  support  psedobaptist  societies. 

If  this  argument  were  rejected,  or  found  to 
be  insufficient  to  win  from  the  Baptists  so 
much  concession  as  would  be  required,  if  they 
fell  in  with  the  proposed  plan  of  union ;  our 
next  resourse  must  be  to  press  upon  our 
friends  of  this  persuasion  a  very  serious  jDrac- 
tical  difficulty,  which  already  meets  them  in 
their  foreign  operations,  and  which  must  as- 
sume a  most  formidable  aspect,  if  the  happy 
time  should  arrive  of  wide-spreading  conver- 


126  NEW    MODEL  ^ 

sion  among  the  heathen.  In  order  to  see 
his  difficulty  in  its  full  force,  and  in  a  distinct 
light,  we  will  confine  our  attention  to  India, 
and  imagine  that  the  teachers  sent  out  by  the 
different  Missionary  Societies,  and  who  are 
stationed  often  in  the  same  cities  or  vicinities, 
actually  succeed  in  collecting  large  congrega- 
tions; and  that  their  converts  make  profi- 
ciency enough  in  religious  and  general  knowl- 
edge to  qualify  them  for  looking  beyond  the 
mere  elements  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  for 
forming  opinions  for  themselves  upon  a  variety 
of  secondary  topics.  In  such  a  state  of 
things,  it  will  be  utterly  impracticable  for  the 
Baptist  teachers  to  conceal  from  their  flocks 
the  fact,  that  there  exists,  among  Christians 
in  England,  and  in  India,  an  opinion  and 
practice  different  from  their  own,  relative  to 
the  subject  and  mode  of  Bapfism.  It  wiD 
then  become  necessary,  for  them  to  make 
their  choice  between  the  only  two  courses 
that  lie  before  them.  Of  these  courses,  the 
first,  is  boldly  to  assume  the  style  of  infallibili- 
ty— a  style,  by  the  way,  for  which  they  may 
find  models  enough  on  the  page  of  Church 
History,  and  even  without  looking  so  flir  as 
Rome.     On  this  hazardous,  yet  often  success- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  127 

ful  plan,  they  must  empirically  proclaim  that 
they  are  absolutely  and  entirely  in  possession 
of  the  mind  of  the  Lord,  and  that  whoever 
differs  from  them — let  the  reasons  he  may 
urge  be  never  so  specious,  is  vdlfully  and 
criminally  in  error.  But  surely  there  are  few 
even  though  their  persuasion  of  having  truth 
on  their  side  may  be  of  the  firmest  kind,  who 
would  thus  stake  the  whole  of  their  influence 
and  reputation  upon  the  passive  obedience  of 
their  followers.  To  act  this  reckless  part 
would  not  be  to  sow  the  seeds  of  bigotry,  but 
to  carry  to  the  infant  churches  a  full-grown 
intolerance,  laden  with  its  ripe  fruit  of  poison. 
I  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  a  Baptist  teacher 
is  any  where  to  be  found  so  infurate  with 
dogmatism  as  not  to  shrink  from  his  purpose 
when  about  to  originate  so  much  mischief 
among  simple-minded  converts ! 

But  if  this  course  cannot — must  not  be 
pursued,  then  the  alternative  wliich  lies  before 
our  Baptist  brethren  is  precisely  that  which 
common  sense,  not  to  say  Christian  humility, 
prescribes. — Let  them  be  content  to  set  be- 
fore then  converts  the  simple  fact,  in  some 
such  manner  as  this — "  There  has  long  been 
"  earned  on  a  dispute  among  sincere  Chris- 


.4 

128  NEW    MODEL  ^' 

"  tians  relative  both  to  the  mode  of  adminis- 
"  tering  the  ordinance  of  baptism,  and  to  the 
"  proper  subject  of  the  rite.  We  accomit  for 
"  the  existence  of  this  strange  and  unhappy 
"  misunderstanding,  not  by  granting  that  any 
"  impenetrable  obscurity  rests  upon  the  terms 
"  in  which  the  Lord  has  made  known  his  will 
"  in  these  particulars ;  but  by  supposing  that  a 
"superstitious  departure  from  the  apostolic 
"practice  took  place  in  a  very  early  age,  and 
"  gained  universal  credit,  and  has  possessed 
"  itself  so  firmly  of  the  minds  of  the  general- 
"  ity  of  Christians,  that  they  are  unable  to 
"  free  themselves  from  the  illusion,  or  to  per- 
"  ceive  the  force  of  the  contrary  evidence, 
"  which,  to  us  appears  in  a  light  perfectly  con- 
'*  wincing.  We  look  forwards  to  the  time 
"when  this  error  shall  be  dissipated,  and 
"  when  the  Christian  law  of  Baptism  shall  be 
"  understood  by  our  brethren,  as  it  is  by  us. 
"  Meanwhile,  as  you  see,  we  are  far  from 
"  imputing  to  those  who  differ  from  us,  any 
"  contumacious  obstinacy,  or  guilty  persistence 
"  in  error,  or  indeed  any  motive  inconsistent, 
"  with  the  genuineness  of  the  Christian  char- 
"  acter.  We  deplore  the  mistake  which,  as 
^' we  think,  they  have  fallen  into  ;  but  we  do 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS  129 

"  not  love  them  the  less  on  account  of  it :  on 
"  the  contrary,  we  respect  their  virtues,  not 
"  less  than  as  if  they  thought  with  us  :  we 
"  cultivate  personal  friendship  with  them ;  we 
"  hold  with  them  undisturbed  Church  commun- 
"  ion;  we  join  hands  with  them  heartily  in 
"  every  effort  to  do  good ;  and  even  more 
"  than  this  ; — in  order  that  we  may  put  no 
"  hindrance  in  the  way  of  the  measures  used 
*'  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel,  we  consent  to 
''  do  and  to  say  rather  less  and  rather  more, 
"  than  we  should,  if  acting  simply  on  our  own 
"convictions,  without  regard  to  the  opinion 
"of  others. 

If  once  this  tone  of  reasonable  moderation 
and  of  Christian  simplicity  were  taken ; — and 
I  am  reluctant  to  believe  that  any  other  would 
be  assumed ;  then,  a  deversity  of  opinion  and 
practice  would  cease  to  be  a  great  evil ;  and 
means  of  accommodation  might  readily  be 
devised.  Baptist  teachers,  wherever  they 
might  be  called  to  labour,  would  enjoy  the 
liberty  which  belongs  to  every  Christian,  to 
set  forth,  in  charitable  terms,  and  on  proper 
occasions,  the  grounds  of  their  peculiar  opin- 
ions ;  and  they,  and  those  converts  who  might 
be  convinced  by  their  arguments,  would  be 


130  NEW    MODEL 

free,  individrially,  to  abstain  from  any  practice 
which  they  think  unwarranted  by  Scripture, 
and  to  observe  any  cerimonial  which  they 
think  of  divine  authority.  This  extent  of 
liberty  couM  generate  no  mischief  within  a 
Church  where  common  sense  and  Christian 
charity  preside. 

But  the  hoklers  of  the  opinion  of  the  Bap- 
tists would  not  be  free-^for  no  disciple  of 
Christ  can  enjoy  such  liberty,  to  disturb  the 
consciences  of  the  simple  by  exaggerating  the 
importance  of  an  opinion  obviously  not  essen- 
tial to  the  faith  of  a  Christian.  Such  persons 
would  not  be  free  to  talli  with  heat  on  the 
disputed  question  ;  they  would  not  be  free  to 
set  a  step  over  the  limits  of  meekness  and 
modesty ;  and  assuredly  they  would  not  be 
free  to  separate  themselves  on  the  ground  of 
any  such  "  doubtful  disputation." 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  majority  possesses  no  rightful  author- 
ity to  insist  upon  the  submission  of  individuals, 
in  matters  confessedly  of  subordinate  impor- 
tance. The  liberty  of  quietly  protesting 
against  what  is  deemed  erroneous,  and  the 
duty  of  giving  indulgence  to  such  protestations 
are  correlatives  :  but  the  one  does  not  imply 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONg.  131 

a  licence  to  break  the  bonds  of  unity,  nor 
the  other  a  right  to  quash  the  expression  of 
opinion. 

So  much  of  indulgence  and  of  concession 
as  our  Baptist  brethren  must  require,  might, 
with  a  very  good  grace,  be  granted  to  them 
by  the  Church  of  England,  which  not  only 
seems  to  favour  the  practice  of  immersion, 
but  also,  by  demanding  sponsors  at  the  font, 
appears,  indirectly,  to  recognise  a  principle 
not  very  unlike  to  that  which  is  assumed  as  a 
ground  of  opposition  to  the  baptism  of  in- 
fants. 


And  now,  my  dear  friend,  I  anticipate  the 
question  which  you  are  hastening  to  put  to 
me  ;— you  have  listened  to  my  argument,  and 
think  yourself  entitled  to  ask  whether,  inform- 
ed as  I  am  in  some  tolerable  degree  of  the 
state  of  religious  parties,  and  not  altogether 
ignorant  of  human  nature,  and  not  by  tem- 
perament very  sanguine,  I  do  myself  think 
the  adoption  of  the  principles  here  recommen- 
ded a  probable  event? — The  question  is  a  fair 
one,  and  I  deliberately  reply  to  it  in  the  affir- 


132  NEW    MODEL 

mative.  After  distinctly  reviewing  the  mighty 
array  of  obstacle  which,  of  course,  will  plant 
itself  in  the  path  of  those  who  may  be  won 
to  espouse  the  cause  of  expansive  charity,  I 
am  not  afraid  to  say  that  I  hope  to  see  the 
reform  effected  which  I  plead  for.  If  I  had 
not  believed  that  my  plan  and  argument  are 
in  fact  only  the  expression  and  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  spiri:^  of  the  times,  I  would  not 
have  broached  them ;  or  I  would  have  waited 
for  the  ripening  of  the  temper  that  is  grow- 
ing. 

I  hear,  indeed,  the  instant  ontcry  of  hun- 
dreds, perhaps  of  thousands,  of  respectable 
men  who,  with  all  the  kindness  one  could 
wish  in  their  hearts,  yet  have  not  a  power  of 
vision  to  look  beyond  the  limits  of  their  relig- 
ious habitudes.  It  matters  not  for  such  per- 
sons that  the  high  wails  of  partition  may  have 
crumbled  down,  or  been  levelled  to  the 
ground. — There  they  sit,  unconscious  of  what 
has  happened  within  bow-shot.  The  oppo- 
sition of  persons  of  this  class  I  do  not  con- 
demn ; — God  forbid  !  but  neither  do  I  reckon 
it  to  the  amount  of  substantial  difliculty. — 
Whether  there  are  hundreds,  or  hundreds  of 
thousuuds  of  such  oppo&ers,  is  of  little  conse- 


OF    CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.  133 

quence.  I  give  '  their  repugnance  a  date : 
they  will  startle  at  the  proposition,  and  ex- 
claim, as  a  man  does  who  is  awakened  by  a 
stranger.  But  if  they  are  not  foolishly  irri- 
tated by  indiscreet  friends  of  reform;  or 
wrought  upon  by  crafty  partisans,  they  will  at 
length  quietly  fall  into  the  new  order  of  thmgs 
and  like  it  better  than  the  old.  Good  feelings 
are  in  them  already ;  and  they  have  good 
sense  ;  and  they  have  partaken  of  the  better 
influence  of  the  times,  and  they  need  only  a 
guiding  hand  in  stepping  across,  from  one 
path  to  another. 

You  very  well  know  that  a  proposition  for 
sound  and  rational  reform  is  nothing  more 
than  the  embodying  of  some  floating  senti- 
ment of  right  reason  which  has  been,  for  a 
while  past,  whispering  itself,  as  it  Were,  in 
every  ones  ears ;  and  speaking  distinctly  in 
the  ears  of  the  wise  and  thoughtful ;  and 
which,  although,  when  for  the  first  time  it 
starts  out  into  words,  it  makes  many  lift  their 
brows,  very  quickly  insinuates  itself,  as  with 
the  graceful  ease  of  nature,  among  our  inmost 
convictions,  and  henceforward  seems  to  us 
like  a  something  which  we  have  always 
known  ond  approved.     How  much  soever 


134  NEW    MODEL 

the  proposition  advanced  in- these  letters  may 
at  first,  excite  the  surprise,  or  even  dislike,  of 
the  passive  portion  of  the  religious  world,  I 
confide  that  it  will  in  the'  end  give  its  irresisti- 
ble weight  to  the  side  of  those  sentiments 
which,  unconsciously  to  itself,  have  been  ger- 
minating beneath  the  surface.  I  have  but 
interpreted — as  I  firmly  believe,  those  indefi- 
nite ideas  v/hich,  tliis  long  time,  have  been 
coming  to  the  birth  in  the  hearts  of  Chris- 
tians.— Many  may  oppose  themseves  to  ne- 
cessary changes  at  the  first,  but  they  will  con- 
sent in  the  end. 

The  friends  of  Missionary  reform  must 
expect  the  hostility  of  the  few — a  few,  I  trust 
whose  hearts  have  not  yet  melted  under  the 
kindly  influence  of  the  times ;  or  in  whose 
bosoms  the  gall  of  the  worst  of  the  malignant 
passions — religious  hatred,  works  with  a  ve- 
hemence so  much  the  more  intense,  because 
it  is  confined.  These  persons,  if  such  there 
are  in  our  age,  may  be  infuriated,  but  they 
are  not  to  be  swayed  by  the  pleadings  of 
charity.  Take  from  them  the  objects  of  their 
splenetic  preference  ;  and  remove  out  of  their 
sight  the  objects  of  their  splenetic  aversion. 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  135 

and  you  strip  them  to  a  state  of  pitiable  des- 
titution. To  them  the  world  would  be  a  void 
if  they  could  find  in  it  none  to  hate  ;  and 
none  to  hug  in  hatred  of  others.  Incompar- 
ably rather  would  they  wander  upon  the 
mountans  of  eternal  solitude,  than  be  brought 
unto  the  one  fold  where  there  is  one  shepherd- 
Offer  to  such  men  the  unleavened  aliment  of 
love,  freed  from  all  relish  of  malice — they 
turn  upon  you,  and  ask,  "  Is  there  any  taste 
in  the  white  of  an  egg  ?' 

And  such  men — alas  !  here  and  there  one 
such  is  to  be  found  in  the  church — have  ever 
in  readiness  a  store  of  most  specious  pretexts, 
wherewith  to  cover  the  blackness  of  their 
hearts  : — they  cany  their  poison  in  "  an  ala- 
baster box,"  which  one  might  suppose  to 
hold  the  "  very  precious  ointment"  of  charity. 
Forsooth,  they  are  all  alive  with  holy  sensibil- 
ity, fearing  lest  the  purity  of  divine  institutions 
should  be  soiled  by  the  touch  of  an  "  unwash- 
en "  finger,  or  the  perfect  symmetry  of  the 
church  marred  by  the  misplacing  of  a  stone  ! 
They  can  by  no  means  consent — no,  not  to 
the  moving  of  a  pin ;  for  have  they  not  a  war- 
ranty of  God's  word  for  each  pin,  and  its 
bearing,  in  their  tabernacle  ?  Can  they  not 


136  NEW    MODEL 

give  you  a  text  in  favour  of  every  inch  of  oint- 
ment that  decorates  their  church  ?  how  then 
should  they  sutFer  sacrilegious  hands  to  move 
what  heaven  has  fastened  1 

But  now  I  pray  you  follow  one  of  these 
sticklers  to  his  home,  and  see  if  his  zeal  for 
God  be  much  better  than  odius  hypocrisy.  Is 
he  indeed  moved  with  so  sacred  a  solicitude 
to  maintain  the  right  worshiping  of  G  od  in  the 
world  ?  but  what  does  he  do  to  promote  the 
honour  of  God  in  his  family  ]  You  will  find 
that  he  neglects  the  religious  education  of  his 
cliildren  and  servants  ;  or  that  he  shocks  such 
sense  of  religion  as  they  may  have,  by  the 
sourness,  or  the  sallies  of  his  temper ;  by  his 
sensularities,  by  his  levities  ;  or  by  the  frauds 
he  practises  in  his  business.  Take  you  any 
fifty  of  those  who  dislhiguish  themselves  as  the 
strenuous  maintainers  of  sectarian  peculiari- 
ties, and  I  challenge  you  to  pick  out  three 
from  the  number,  who  do  not,  by  some  such 
inconsistency  at  home,make  it  evident,  that 
their  ecclesiastical  zeal  is  a  thing  as  hollow — 
though  not  so  harmless,  as  the  slough  of  a 
snake. 

Or  if  indeed  it  grieves  these  sanctomonious 
persons  so  much   to  think  that  a  fev/  thou- 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  137 

sands  of  their  countrymen  persist  in  the  eiTor 
of  worshiping  God  amiss ;  does  it  not  give 
them  a  pain  proportionably  acute  to  know, 
that  millions  of  their  fellow-men  abroad  are 
worshippers  of  the  devil  ?  In  all  reason,  and 
if  there  be  any  such  thing  as  consistency, 
whoever  is  zealous  above  measure  from  the 
purity  of  religious  forms,  should  show  himself, 
beyond  all  measure,  ardent  for  the  conversion 
of  idolators.^  If  the  errors  of  such  or  such  a 
sect  of  Christians  moves  his  commiseration, 
how  feels  he  in  regard  to  the^votaries  of  Brah- 
ma? If  he  gives  a  tenth  for  the  keeping  up 
of  his  church  at  home,  he  should  bestow  "the 
half  of  his  goods "  for  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  abroad.  We  will  then  respectfully 
listen  to  the  scuples  of  the  zealot,  when  he 
has  afforded  us  some  such  substantial  proof 
as  this,  that  his  pleas  spring  not  from  the 
spleen  of  his  temper,  but  from  an  over 
wrought  concern  for  the  honour  of  God,  and 
the  good  of  his  fellow-creatures. 

Persons  of  this  class  will,  of  course,  and 
by  all  means,  oppose  themselves  to  any  meas- 
ure, the  tendency  of  which  is  to  make  secta- 
rianism less  sectarian.  But  their  malice  may 
be  very  serenely  defied  by  men  of  -a  better 
12* 


138  NEW    MODEL 

spirit.  They  live  too  late : — would  they  could 
fall  back  into  the  thirteenth  century  ;  or  let 
them  hie  away  to  Madrid  !  Or,  if  they  must 
stay  among  us,  let  them  herd  together,  and 
pursue  their  ill  courses  as  they  can.  A  with- 
ering shall  rest  upon  whatever  they  attempt ; 
the  spirit  they  are  moved  by  might  perhaps 
haiie  been  winked  at  by  heaven  an  age  ago, 
but  it  shall  be  frowned  upon  now. 

In  looking  around  the  amphitheatre  of 
evangelical  profession  in  search  of  individuals 
who  may  probably  profess  themselves  favour- 
ers of  missionary  reform,  the  eye  fixes  upon 
many  eminent  persons;  whose  strong  sense 
and  piety  afford  assurance  that  they  will  meet 
whatever  occasions  may  arise  in  the  Church 
with  a  self-denying  and  Christian  manliness 
of  spirit.  Perplexities  may  for  a  while  hold 
them  back ;  but  certainly  the  distinguished 
men  of  whom  I  am  thinking,  and  whose 
names  will  occur  to  you  as  readily  as  to  me, 
are  not  the  men  to  be  left  lorlg,  or  far  in  the 
rear,  when  auspicious  movements  are  in  pro- 
gress. Tliey  will  convince  themselves  of  truth 
and  act  upon  that  conviction. 

The  confidence  I  feel  that  the  sentiments 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  139 

itlvanced  in  these  letters-  will  at  length  meet 
the  approval  of  the  persons  I  allude  to,  is  very 
strong.  I  have  not  been  pleading  for  this  or 
that  ingenious  device,  or  been  urging  the  a- 
doption  of  a  particular  machinery  of  means, 
or,  with  the  fond  dogmatism  of  an  inventor, 
magnifying  the  advantages  of  some  new  con- 
trivance. I  have  insisted  solely  upon  great 
and  universal  principles ;  and  ho^e  affirmed 
strenuously  nothing  but  truthes  of  the  highest 
moment.  Let  the  measures  I  have  been  bold 
to  recommend  be  judged  of,  approved,  or 
rejected,  on  this  high  ground.  Or,  if  a  lurk- 
ing motive  of  party-feeling  can  be  detected 
by  the  keenest  eye,  on  a  single  page,  let  the 
whole  be  set  at  nought. 

Upon  men  of  c^ji  and  vigorous  minds  I 
would  earnestly  urge  the  propriety,  at  the 
present  moment,  of  surveying  the  state  and 
peculiar  position  of  the  Christian  Church; 
and  beg  them  to  ask  themselves  whether  they 
can  believe  that  things  will  long  remain  as 
they  are?  If  not,  it  becomes  us  to  be  pre- 
pared to  act  our  part  in  a  new  train  of  events. 
This  sort  of  forecasting  of  the  futm^e  is  by  no 
means  prt sumptuous ;  it  is  becoming  to  a 
wise  man ;  it  is  encouraged  by  the  word  of 


140  NEW    MODEL 

God,  which,  in  granting  to  our  perusal  a  true 
and  unbrokenj  record  of  past  ages,  and  in 
opening  dimly  before  us  the  mysteries  of  fu- 
turity, invites  pious  meditation  to  grasp  the 
entire  cycle  of  time  ; — yet  not  for  purposes  of 
idle  amusement ;  but  rather  that  we  may 
gather  the  wisdom  which  may  guide  us  in  this 
season  of  oar  responsibility. 

It  is  true  that,  in  an  age  of  unsophisticated 
simplicity,  it  may  be  enough  that  Christians, 
whatever  dangers  or  revolutions  may  impend, 
are  found  humbly  holding  the  faith,  and  doing 
the  will  of  their  Lord.  Come  what  may, 
their  spirit  of  love,  and  meekness,  and  purity, 
furnishes  them  with  all  the  preparation  they 
need  for  the  day  of  trial.  Clad  and  armed 
with  the  doctrine  of  peace  and  holiness,  they 
can  sustain  no  disadvantage  from  surprise. — 
But  for  ourselves,  as  it  is  certain  that  we  live 
not  in  such  an  age  of  child-like  uncorruptness^ 
and  as  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  Gospel 
among  us  is  intimately  mingled  with,  and  on 
all  sides  surrounded  by  those  artificial  senti- 
ments, those  nervous  modes  of  thinking,  and 
those  expansive  notions,  which  belong  to  a 
state  of  high  intellectual  culture,  we  must  e'en 
think  and  feel  in  a  manner  proper  to  our  times. 


1 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  141 

Wc  could  not,  if  wc  would,  go  back  and  sit 
at  the  feet  of  Polycarp,  and  Clement,  and 
Barnabas  !  We  must  reason  with  more  com- 
plexit} ,  with  more  comprehension,  with  more 
exactness;  and  yet  need  not  feel  less  as  Chris- 
tians should.  The  Giver  of  manly  under- 
standing and  intellectual  culture,-  can  sanctify 
to  liis  own  glory  these  endo^vments.. 

At  the  present  moment,  those  who,  in  fear 
of  losing  their  Christian  simplicity,  refuse  to 
think  vigorously,  or  to  fix.the  eye  upon  re- 
mote objects,  and  who,  with  the  timorous- 
ness,  almost,  of  a  selfish  heart,  will  give  at- 
tention to  nothing  that  does  not  immediately 
concern  them,  will  find  that  they  have  som.e- 
what  mistaken  the  specific  duty  to  which  the 
Lord  in  this  day  is  calling  his  people  ;  and  in- 
stead of  retaining  in  their  hands  the  sweets  of 
primitive  ingenuousness,  will  hold  nothing  but 
the  ineptitude  of  indolence  and  folly.  It  is  a 
vain  attempt  to  live  otherv^^ise  than  according 
to  the  characteristic  conditions  of  the  age  in 
which  our  lot  is  cast. 

But  if  we  do  thus  look  extensively  around 
us,  and  forecast  the  probable  course  of  events 
— not  to  say  gather  the  indications  of  prophe- 
cy, it  is  hard  to  thinly  otherwise  that, that  chan- 


142  NEW    MODEL 

ges  are  hastening  towards  us,  such  as  discreet 
men  will  rather  muse  upon  than  talk  of  before 
*.hey  come.  The  season  of  indecision,  of  neu- 
trality, of  half-measures,  of  snug  repose,  is 
drawing  to  its  end,  and  the  question  which  ev- 
ery man  will  have  to  determine — and  to  de- 
termine perhaps  in  a  day,  will  be,  whether 
he  will  take  his  lot  of  irretrievable  ruin  with 
those  who  are  infatuated  with  secular  motives ; 
or  go  over,  in  the  hour  of  danger,  to  the  stan- 
dard of  the  Gospel. 

The  best,  the  true  preparation  for  the  ex- 
pected hour  of  decision  is,  to  keep  the  eye  fix- 
ed upon  whatever  is  great  and  unchangeable 
in  our  faith.  The  most  fatal  of  all  delusions 
is  to  bo  right  in  matters  unimportant,  and  faint- 
ly to  apprehend  the  substance  of  religion. 
The  Christian  Church  has  of  late  been  school- 
ed in  this  great  lesson  in  a  manner  so  remark- 
able as  to  make  manifest  the  hand  of  the  Di- 
vine Teacher. — The  Missionary  zeal  has  been 
sent  down  upon  us,  not  merely  (or  perha{)s 
chiefly)  as  the  means  of  converting  the  na- 
tions; but  as  a  spirit  of  burning  and  of  judg- 
ment, of  scrutiny  and  discrimination.  It  fer- 
ments in  the  lump  to  separate  the  precious 
from  the  vile ;  to  make  manifest  who  are  on 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  143 

the  Lord's  side,  and  who,  by  the  confession 
implied  in  their  conduct,  are  to  be  numbered 
with  His  foes.  Then  again  it  penetrates  more 
deeply  into  the  mass  of  profession,  and  tries 
us,  and  discriminates,  in  the  capital  article  of 
Christian  love.  In  measure  we  have  come 
forth  as  gold  from  the  trial : — the  calumny  of 
Satan  who,  in  the  open  court  of  heaven,  has 
these  many  ages  been  saying  that  the  disciples 
of  Christ  love  not  each  other,  is  now  found, 
like  ail  his  spiteful  but  specious  allegations,  to 
be  false ;  and  it  is  seen  that,  though  still  in- 
firm in  judgment,  and  faulty  in  practice,  the 
company  of  the  godly  are  one  in  heart,  and 
purpose.  Thus  have  we  passed  through  the 
initial  process  of  the  trial. 

But  the  work  of  the  Heavenly  Refiner  is 
not  yet  perfected.  Think  we  that  he  is  con- 
tent with  what  has  been  accomplished,  or  will 
stay  his  hand,  just  at  the* moment  when  the 
fine  gold  is  bursting  forth  from  the  dross  ?  As- 
suredly not ;  He  will  rather  urge  the  heat,  in 
confident  hope  of  the  issue. 

It  is  sublimely  affecting  to  look  round  and 
see  in  what  manner  we  are  shut  up — shut  up 
beyond  possibility  of  escape,  under  the  hand 
of  Him  who  is  dealing  with  us.     Omnipotent^ 


144  NEW    MODEL 

both  for  judgment  and  mercy,  and  stern  in  the 
determination  of  awful  beneficence,  and  wise 
to  catch  us  in  our  own  craftiness,  he  has  been 
leading  his  Church  into  the  snare  of  its  own 
zeal,  for  its  good.  Let  us  contemplate  the 
straitness  of  the  ground  on  which  we  are  pla- 
ced.—We  have  been  quickened  to  a  sense  of 
our  duty  to  preach  the  Gospel  among  the  na- 
tions ;  we  feel  that  this  obligation  cannot  be 
evaded,  cannot  be  forgotten,  cannot  be  defer- 
red. And  now,  for  a  forty  years  almost,  we 
have  been  toiling  in  the  work,  and  are  coming 
to  a  conviction  that  a  new,  a  greater,  and  a 
better  directed  effort  must  be  made  in  behalf 
of  our  benighted  brethren  than  has  yet  been 
thought  of  We  do  not  faint,  or  admit  mis- 
givings ;  but  yet,  in  the  depth  of  our  hearts 
we  conceal  the  wistful  prayer  of  conscious 
imbecility,  and  are  fain  to  ask  that  the  Lord, 
in  compassion  to  the  world,  would  once  again, 
as  in  ancient  times,  grant  to  the  use  of  His 
servants  the  rod  of  his  omnipotence  ! 

Whether  or  not  this  unwhispered  desire 
shall  be  listened  to,  who  shall  say  ?  But  first 
the  Church  must  be  brought  dclilicrately  to 
revise  its  proceedings  ;  must  candidly  confess 
that  it  has  erred,  and  nuist  addi*ess  its^jlftothc 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  145 

great  work  in  a  better  manner.  The  convic- 
tion which  is  already  engendered,  must  come 
forth,  and  be  explicitly  recognized ;  that 
Christianity  can  be  successfully  promulgated 
only  by  the  united  exertions  of  all  true  Chris- 
tians. This  is  the  issue  to  which  we  are  ap- 
proaching. The  work  before  us  is  found  to 
be  too  vast  for  our  means — especially  if  waste- 
fully  administered  :  and  the  company  of  faith- 
ful men  must  needs  join  hands,  or  be  defeat- 
ed in  their  purpose. 

The  Missionary  zeal  is  thus  bringing  on  a 
reform  at  home,  which  the  injunctions  ofScrip- 
ture  have  hitherto  failed  to  effect  We  must 
abandon  our  hope  of  winning  immortal  hon- 
our and  eternal  reward,  as  the  successful  pro- 
mulgators of  the  Gospel ;  or  else  submit  to  the 
divine  rule  of  church  communion.  Eagerly, 
and  without  forethought  of  the  consequence, 
we  set  about  converting  the  nations,  and  now 
find  that  ourselves  must  first  be  converted  to 
the  practice  of  the  apostolic  age. 

If  there  is  any  one  body  of  persons  upon 
whom,  at  this  moment,  there  rests,  by  emi- 
nence, a  fearful  weight  of  responsibility  towards 
their  Christian  brethren— towards  their  coun- 
13 


146  NEW   MODEL 

trymen  at  large,  and  towards  the  world,  it  is 
the  evangelical  members  of  the  Established 
Church.  Let  them  review  their  position,  and 
see  in  what  manner  the  most  momentous  in- 
terests centre  upon  the  conduct  they  shall 
pursue  in  the  day  when  a  new  course  must  be 
taken. — 

It  is  no  preposterous  exaggeration  to  affirm^ 
that  the  hope  of  the  nations  is  now  in  the  keep- 
ing of  the  English,  whose  eminence,  in  what- 
ever is  most  noble  and  useful,  whose  extensive 
political  power,  whose  expansive  commerce 
and  colonization,  whose  spreading  language 
and  brilliant  literature,  whose  high  and  com- 
manding spirit,  conspire  to  fix  upon  them  the 
gaze  of  mankind.  This  is  no  empty  vaunt  of 
national  vanity ;  for  even  if  there  were  any 
other  people  that  might  dispute  with  us  the 
palm  of  superiority  in  the  particulars  enume- 
rated, yet,  certainly,  there  is  none  that  can 
compete  with  the  English  on  the  ground  of 
expansive  beneficence:  if  others  are  as  valiant 
and  as  wise,  none  are  so  charitable.  Among 
us — without  a  rival — is  found  the  spirit  of  bold, 
laborious,  and  liberal  philanthropy.  No  peo- 
ple sends  forth,  as  we  do  almost  daily  Irom 
our  ports,  heroes  of  mercy,  who  willingly  take 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  147 

their  last  look  of  the  fairest  and  the  happiest 
of  lands;  self-banished  by  the  compassion 
which  burns  in  their  breasts  towards  the 
wretched  of  distant  climes  !  It  is  then  no  ab- 
surd boast  to  affirm,  that  the  hope  of  the  world 
is  now  in  the  keeping  of  the  English. 

But  we  must  prosecute  yet  further  our  search 
for  the  casket  that  actually  holds  the  jewel  of 
univ  ers  al  mercy.  Alas  !  does  the  hope  of 
good  for  the  nations  rest  with  those — the  thou- 
sands among  us,  who  are  living  for  wealth, 
or  living  for  enjoyment ;  with  those  who 
thought  yesterday  only  of  pleasing  themselves ; 
who  to-day  are  labouring  only  to  please  them- 
selves ;  and  who  are  saying  of  to-morrow, 
that  it  shall  be  more  abundant  in  pleasure  than 
to-day  ?  No ;  from  these  the  wretched  have 
nothing  to  hope,  save  the  casual  alms  that  are 
the  price  of  riddance  from  importunity. 

It  is  none  other  than  the  religionists  of  Eng- 
land who  are  the  sealed  ministers  of  heaven's 
wide  beneficence  to  all  people.  It  is  the  men ; 
call  them  by  what  name  you  please  ;  enthu- 
siasts, fools,  hypocrites ;— call  them  thus,  for 
these  words  of  contumely  will,  if  so  abused, 
soon  gain  a  meaning  of  honour ;— it  is  the 
men  who  cannot  rest  on  the  couch  of  delight, 


148  NEW    MODEL 

or  even  be  at  ease  in  the  home  of  domestic 
peace,  while  they  know  that  others,  whom 
perhaps  they  might  help,  are  miserable.  It 
is  the  men  who,  in  the  midst  oi'  those  person- 
al cares  and  sorrows  which  make  the  selfish 
more  selfish,  devise  liberal  things,  and  actual- 
ly pay  the  cost  of  bringing  their  liberal  devices 
into  effect.  Tell  me  not  that  they  exhibit 
sometimes  in  their  plans  or  temper  the  infir- 
mity of  human  nature ; — I  challenge  not  for 
them  the  praise  of  angelic  wisdom : — still  it  is 
true  that  they  are  the  persons  of  all  mankind ; 
and  they,  compared  with  the  men  of  past  ages, 
who  have  imagined,  and  who  have  preserving- 
ly  laboured  to  bring  about  the  reformation  of 
the  world.  And  they — few  of  them  opulent, 
are  defraying,  from  year  to  year,  the  charge 
of  carrying  on  the  enterprise.  Calumniators ! 
look  at  the  tables  of  charitable  expenditure — 
an  expenditure  to  which  you  contribute  not 
even  the  price  of  the  least  expensive  of  your 
frivolities.— Look  !  and  turn  again  to  your  sties 
of  selfish  indulgence,  and  if  you  cannot  be 
ashamed,  at  least  have  the  grace  to  be  silent  I 
It  is,  I  say,  the  religionists  of  England,  of 
every  communion  ;  I  mean  the  holders  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Reformation,  whose  glory  it  is 


OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS.  149 

to  stand  Ibrth  as  the  saviours  of  the  world. 
Shall  we  descend  to  a  more  exact  analysis  of 
the  general  mass  ^  Not  surely  for  any  purpose 
of  invidious  comparison ;  but  that  we  may  gain 
a  better  purchase  upon  the  centre  of  move- 
ment and  power.  The  ^ound  members  of  the 
Established  Church,  the  men — clergy  and  lai- 
ty, who  profess  the  doctiine  of  the  martyrs, 
the  saints,  the  sages  of  the  English  reforma- 
tion, stand  certainly  distinguished  among  the 
professors  of  the  same  faith,  if  not  by  number, 
yet  by  several  signal  pre-eminences.  To  them 
(generally)  belongs  the  visible  advantage  of 
secular  precedency.  With  them  are  rank 
and  fortune  ;  gifts  which  acceptably  may  be 
laid  at  the  feet  of  the  King  of  kings.  Theirs 
are  the  benefits,  inestimable,  of  thorough  ed- 
ucation ;  an  advantage  which  the  Lord  has  in 
every  age  vouchsafed  to  make  use  of  when  he 
has  had  eminent  public  services  in  hand.  By 
them,  almost  exclusively,  is  enjoyed  the  hon- 
our of  enduring  something  more  like  a  real 
persecution  from  the  world,  than  has  been 
suffered  in  England  a  long  while  by  any  class 
of  Christians.  And  may  it  not  be  added,  that 
the  pious  members  of  the  Established  Church 
enjoy  at  the  present  moment,  by  eminence,  that 


150  NEW    MODEL 

influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  which  spring 
seriousness  of  temper,  simplicity  of  faith,  and 
purity  of  morals  ;  and  which  moreover  is  or- 
dinarily conferred  upon  those  who  are  in  train- 
ing for  peculiar  sufferings  or  services. 

These  distinctions  give  to  the  body  of  enlight- 
ened Churchmen  a  visible  claim  to  the  honour 
of  taking  the  lead  in  any  new  and  important 
measures  in  which  the  interests  of  Christianity 
at  large  may  be  involved.  An  alternative 
not  to  be  evaded  is  before  these  persons ;  they 
must  either  take  up  the  part  which  heaven  as- 
signs them,  or  lose  rank  in  front  of  the  church 
universal. 

If  a  proposition,  such  as  might  become  the 
wisdom  and  meekness  of  Christians,  and  the 
good  sense  and  manliness  of  Englishmen,  were 
made  by  Churchmen  to  those  of  the  Dissen- 
ters who  are  taking  part  in  the  Missionary 
cause,  I  verily  believe  it  would  be  hailed  by 
thousands  of  them  with  a  burst  of  pleasure. 
The  minority ;  I  think  it  would  be  a  minority ^ 
who  should  persist  in  their  rigidities,  would 
presently  crumble  away  into  absolute  non-im- 
portance. Should  an  overture,  thus  fraught 
with  charity,  be  made  on  the  one  part,  and 
acceded  to  on  the  other,  extensive  consequen- 


OF    CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS.  151 

ces  of  the  happiest  kind  might  be  looked  for : 
A  bright  prospect  opens  to  my  view  !  but  I 
abstain  from  themes  which  belong  not  to  my 
proposed  task. 

The  ministers  of  Christ  are  accustomed  in 
moments  of  danger  or  difficulty,  when  com- 
fort and  aid  from  above  are  peculiarly  needed, 
to  refer  confidently  to  the  last  promise  left  by 
the  Lord  with  his  disciples,  that  "  He  would 
be  with  them  always,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world."  But  is  it  as  often  recollected  that  the 
same  Lord  is  present,  not  only  for  help  in  time 
of  trouble,  but  for  judgment  and  discrimina- 
tion 1  He  walks  among  his  churches  as  an  ex- 
act observer  of  the  conduct,  not  of  the  indi- 
viduals merely  who  profess  obedience  to  his 
will,  but  of  the  Church,  as  a  public  body. 
He  has  a  system  of  dispensations  for  individu- 
als, and  a  system  also  for  his  Church.  He 
comes  to  its  aid  in  times  of  depression,  and 
visits  it  with  chastisement  on  occasions  of  mis- 
conduct. He  tries  it  with  an  hour  of  purify- 
ing tribulation,  and  grants  to  it  again  an  au- 
spicious season  in  which,  peculiarly,  the  praise 
of  immortal  glory  may  be  contended  for  and 
won  on  some  course  of  arduous  labour.     But 


152      NEW  MODEL    OF    CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

if  the  occasion  is  slighted,  the  crown  is  with- 
drawn from  the  course  in  punitive  displeasure ;. 
and  the  fair  offer  is  made  to  the  Christians  of 
another  nation,  or  of  another  age. 

I  desire  nothing,  my  dear  friend,  but  that 
those  whose  hearts  are  open  to  considerations 
of  this  kind  should,  with  the  seriousness  which 
becomes  the  subject,  hear  the  voice  that  speaks 
in  all  that  is  happening  around  us,  and  read, 
in  the  language  of  passing  events,  the  special 
message  sent  from  the  head  of  the  Church  to 
the  Christians  of  England.  In  the  boldness 
of  devout  conviction,  I  will  predict,  that  if  we 
yield  not  at  this  moment  to  the  command  of 
Christ,  the  glorious  work  of  evangelizing  the 
world  will  be  taken  from  our  hands,  and  given 
to  others.  Mercy  of  Heaven !  come  down 
and  help  us ;  and  as  Thou  hast  conferred  up- 
on thy  people  the  fire  of  zeal,  grant  unto  them 
also  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  of  love. 

THE    END. 


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